FITCHBURG — District Court Judge Elliot Zide ordered Horacio Vega held on $5,000 bail Thursday after police caught him allegedly breaking into Swift-Ezz Laundromat on River Street early Thursday.
Vega, 46, of Marshall Street, faces charges of breaking and entering, possession of a burglarious instrument, vandalizing property and breaking glass in a building.
Police reports said responding officers found Vega inside the Laundromat, hiding behind a video game system and holding a framing hammer and blue razor knife. Police arrested Vega at 3:24 a.m., reports said.
“The door was smashed, the alarm system had been ripped out of the wall, and the cash area had been damaged,”
Assistant District Attorney William McGourty said during Vega’s hearing at Fitchburg District Court on Thursday.
Police reports said damage was also done to a storage closet.
Fitchburg police Chief Robert DeMoura said breaking-and-entering offenses are the second-most common type of crime the city faces.
“It’s extremely rare that we are able to catch a criminal in the act of breaking and entering, because those crimes usually occur under the cover of darkness,” DeMoura said.
He added that his department did a “great job” responding to the incident.
“Because breaking and entering is so common, it’s a big success any time we can apprehend someone in the act,” he said.
Vega was also arraigned on separate charges from a June 13 incident, in which he is charged with breaking into a car, stealing a credit card and using the card six times.
He has been charged with credit card larceny, attempting to commit a crime and malicious damage to a motor vehicle in connection with the June 13 incident, for which Zide set bail at $1,000.
Vega’s attorney, Jamie Anne Bennett of Worcester, said Vega was on probation when police arrested him.
The Laundromat had suffered a prior break-in on July 4, McGourty added.
“This was definitely new damage, though it was in a similar fashion (to the July 4 break-in),” he said.
McGourty, who initially requested bail be set at $10,000, said Vega has been incarcerated in the past.
Bennett said her client receives disability, lives with his 26-year-old son, and has a cocaine problem.
Attorneys scheduled Vega’s next hearing for July 31.
