Borough woman arrives at home in time to interrupt appliance thefts

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NAUGATUCK — A woman arrived Friday at her long-vacant home to find appliances and other metal objects in a pile on the lawn and two borough men about to load their loot into a pickup truck, according to police.

Joseph Coppola, 35, of 33 Forest St., and Thomas Buonocore, 32, of 23 Union St., had ripped the cellar door at 93 Aetna St. off its hinges and removed several items, including two washing machines, a dryer, bed frames and a sewing machine, said Lt. Robert Harrison, spokesman for the Naugatuck Police Department.

The homeowner arrived shortly after 3 p.m., but the men had sold more than 1,500 pounds of metal from the house earlier in the day to a Waterbury scrap yard, Harrison said.

The woman called police, who arrived to arrest both men on charges of third-degree burglary, second-degree criminal mischief and fifth-degree larceny. They were released on $7,500 bonds to appear Feb. 22 in Waterbury Superior Court.