Dough-Doughs

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/21575.htm>

The New York Post



  DOUGH-DOUGHS
  By DAN MANGAN


January 27, 2005 --  Two bozo bandits threw away nearly a million dollars
because they didn't realize that the $900,000 worth of bonds they stole
from a New Jersey home could be spent as easily as the $100,000 cash they
kept, cops said.

 "They had no idea what they had," Ramsey Police Chief Bryan Gurney said of
the teenage crooks who walked off with the 100-pound safe.

 "That's why I think they just got rid of them. The defendants may not have
been aware . . . even how to negotiate these types of bonds."

 The 19-year-olds were nabbed after bragging about their caper and blowing
through a quarter of the cash on adult toys, officials said.

 Now Gurney is afraid of setting off a treasure hunt.

 He believes the safe and the bearer bonds - whose detachable dividend
coupons can be redeemed by anyone possessing them - are still somewhere in
northern New Jersey.

 "We have an idea where the safe is, but we don't want to put it out
because if somebody beats us to it, we're thinking we could have another
theft," Gurney said.


 Gurney said he did not know why the owner of the burgled house, Joseph
Bonaro, was keeping so much cash - mainly in $100 bills - and bonds in the
small, locked safe in a closet.

 Bonaro, 79, declined comment at his home in the upper-middle-class town.

 Police believe the two New Jersey men arrested for the theft, William
Kittredge of Upper Saddle River, and Dominic Puzio of Mahwah, had known the
safe was there before they allegedly broke into the unoccupied home
sometime between Jan. 11 and Jan. 14.

 The men, who have been charged with burglary and theft, were busted last
Friday and later released on $10,000 bail.

 "All indications are that they knew where to go," Gurney said. "They went
directly to where this safe was and they grabbed it."

 Gurney said the thieves first tried to get in the house by turning a key
that had been left in the outside lock of the back door. When it broke off,
he said, they went through an open window. In addition to the safe, the men
swiped two watches and some coins, Gurney said.

 Cops nailed the culprits after getting a tip that a "couple of guys were
bragging about a burglary they did, and were out buying a bunch of stuff,"
Gurney said.

 When police arrested Kittredge and Puzio, they recovered about $75,000 as
well as items they allegedly bought with the loot, including a Suzuki
motorcycle, a watch, golf clubs, a TV and a DVD player, cops said.

 Additional reporting by John Doyle

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'