Fake Family Busted for Open-House Robberies

By Brett Widness | Posted Oct 17th 2009 10:00AM
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Next time you hold an open house, hide the jewelry. Baltimore police recently arrested a duo posing as father and son who've been robbing open houses in the Washington, D.C. area, according to ABC 2 News. At the time of arrest, one of them had jewelry from that home in his pocket.

Fifty-one-year-old John Palmer Jr., of Glen Burnie, Md., and 22-year-old Samuel Goldstein, of Dundalk, Md. were charged with stealing $10,000 in cash and jewelry from several homes on the market in Baltimore and Montgomery County, Md. as well as Alexandria and Fairfax County, Va.

The scam went something like this...
One of them would distract the real estate agent with questions while the other grabbed the valuables.

The plot began to unravel when an agent alerted the local Realtors' association on Sept. 16 that one of her open houses in Northern Virgina had been robbed.

The pair was spotted at an open house two weeks later on Sept. 27, and then arrested on Oct 4 in Baltimore.

Filed under: Renting
 

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