NORWICH – A judge rejected a couple’s claim Tuesday that New York State Police investigators removed their personal belongings while executing search warrants to obtain about $30,000 worth of stolen items the family’s son had hoarded at their home.
Curtis and Mary Ellen Snyder appeared with attorney Kenneth P. Whiting at the hearing and told Supreme Court Judge Kevin M. Dowd that police had accidentally seized some of the couple’s property in searches conducted on Jan. 22 and Feb. 21 in 2008.
In stark contradiction to their claim, District Attorney Joseph A. McBride told Dowd that this was just another attempt by the couple to claim stolen property they knew not to be theirs.
Curtis Snyder was arrested Jan. 22, 2008 over allegations that he aided his son, 23-year-old son Matthew M. Snyder, in the theft, possession and sale of nearly $30,000 worth of items taken from several burglarized homes in the Afton-Bainbridge area.
Following a bench trial, Dowd found Curtis Snyder not guilty of all the charges against him in April.
Matthew Snyder, however, pleaded guilty in January 2009 to two counts of burglary and Dowd later sentenced him to four years in state prison.
Matthew admitted in court that he burglarized at least 11 different homes, stealing tens of thousands worth of property, between 2005 and 2007.
The prosecutor at the time, First Assistant District Attorney Stephen M. Dunshee, argued that Curtis Snyder was aware of his son’s activities and helped him sell and store the property. The family all lived under the same roof and Dunshee claimed that it was impossible for Curtis Snyder not to be aware of the 190-plus pieces of accumulated stolen property found at the residence, which included several chainsaws, firearms, a four-wheeler, a dirt bike, $7,000 worth of jewelry, tools and more.
A state police informant wearing a wire bought stolen items at the residence from Matthew Snyder, and the agency later removed around 190 suspected stolen items from the home.
During the two-hour property hearing Tuesday, McBride also referred frequently to Curtis Snyder’s previous criminal case, reiterating that he and police investigators still believe he played a role in the crimes despite his acquittal.
“He doesn’t get to steal everything in the neighborhood and then get to keep it just because he decided to claim it was his after he was acquitted,” said McBride.
McBride said his office received a letter in June from the couple claiming that several pieces of the seized and unclaimed property in fact belonged to them and wanted it all returned.
McBride said since the arrest of Curtis and Matthew Snyder on Jan. 22, 2008 and prior to the June 2009 letter, no one had contacted his office or the state police to tell them that some of the property may belong to the couple.
McBride called 22-year veteran Senior Investigator Lori A. Hochdanner of the New York State Police to the stand during the hearing. She told the court that the mother, Mary Ellen, had told police she had removed all the suspected stolen property from her son’s room and piled it in the garage during the second search warrant.
“She told us ‘Just take it all, I don’t want any of it,’” recalled Hochdanner on the stand.
Mary Ellen also took the stand and said she had accidentally placed the items in the garage, but then seemed to backtrack on her remarks on cross-examination by the DA, saying she removed only stolen property to the garage.
Hochdanner said police had about two thirds of the original 190 suspected stolen property items unclaimed, noting that some of the victims had passed away.
Dowd ruled in favor of the DA saying, “I don’t know how you can have this cavalier attitude about the property, saying, ‘Here take it, I don’t want it’ - not saying anything, at all, to anyone about it possibly belonging to the family, not until much later at least,” said Dowd.
The judge ordered that the remaining property be handed over to the Department of Social Services and that any seized weapons be destroyed.