THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609210247
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 76 lines
Police say breaking and entering was a way of life for Zofie Kuziemska - a very lucrative way of life.
They say a haul last spring brought her $20,000 in silver bowls and cutlery from a Virginia Beach home. They say another this summer near Charlottesville netted almost $40,000 in silver and jewelry.
For most of 1996, police say, it went like clockwork for the 42-year-old native of Poland.
Until June 28. Police say that's when Kuziemska broke into the home of William Tomlin of Albermarle County, and suddenly her luck changed.
First, they say, Tomlin came home from work early. Second, Tomlin's place of work was the Charlottesville Police Department.
Kuziemska's bad luck continued when a heads-up investigator with the Albermarle County Police Department helped Virginia Beach police match her fingerprints with one found at an unsolved burglary scene in the resort city.
With that match, Beach police believe they may have discovered who is responsible for a string of unsolved burglaries in the Hilltop area.
``We were fortunate in this case that there was a fingerprint there and there was someone we could match it to,'' prosecutor Cynthia Shepherd said Friday.
Kuziemska has been an illegal alien since she entered the country in Chicago in 1976, said Michael Eigner, officer in charge of the Norfolk office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Eigner said his office has put a detainer on Kuziemska. She will likely be deported after she is tried and serves her sentence or is released, Eigner said.
``She had been put under deportation proceedings some time ago,'' Eigner said. ``We don't want to just deport somebody before they have dealt with whatever charges they have pending.''
On Friday, General District Judge J. Dale Bimson certified to the grand jury charges against Kuziemska of breaking and entering, grand larceny and possession of burglary tools.
The charges stem from a single break-in and burglary on Carolyn Drive. Police say Kuziemska stole about $20,000 worth of silverware and silver bowls from a home there sometime between April 19 and 23.
Police say it was typical of Kuziemska's modus operandi. Police believe that Kuziemska was a burglar with the signature ``gypsy style'' who chose the best silver and jewelry from homes in upscale communities along the East Coast.
Kuziemska, they believe, never stayed long in one locality, hitting only selected homes before moving on with a roving family of house thieves. They say she worked with other professionals, usually a male driver who waited for her in a car outside the homes, often corner dwellings with lots of bushes, trees and other cover.
In Virginia this year, police think Kuziemska stole about $40,000 from a home near Charlottesville. They believe there were many other successful burglaries, including about four in Virginia Beach, between Hilltop and the Oceanfront.
It began to unravel in June when Tomlin allegedly found Kuziemska in a hallway of his home with a pillowcase filled with $500 worth of his wife's jewelry. After a brief struggle, Tomlin subdued the woman. She was arrested later by Det. Howard Porter of the Albemarle County Police Department.
Porter said Kuziemska is most likely part of a roving band of thieves. ``My opinion is that they are professionals,'' Porter said. ``From what we can tell, they will travel around in one car with a male driving. He drops off one or two females and they do all the dirty work.''
Tomlin told investigators he saw a man madly honking his car horn on the street outside Tomlin's home on the day Kuziemska was arrested. The man disappeared before he could be arrested.
Shepherd said Kuziemska has been arrested before on similar charges but she did not know the outcome.
Eigner said he didn't know why Kuziemska had not been deported earlier. ``Sometimes when they come in contact with law, the locals don't get in contact (with us) and we will not know about it,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: BURGLARY ARREST by CNB