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Thief Caught on Camera Returns for Clothes Left in Dryer

WILTON, Maine — Security cameras recorded a theft at M&J Laundromat, but the suspect made the police’s job a little easier by returning for his laundry, which he had left running in the store’s dryer.The suspect, Lee Gosselin, 32, of Bailey Island, Maine, was apprehended when he walked back into the laundry to get his clothes from the dryer. He was charged with theft of a wallet and arrested for violating bail conditions. He was booked at the Franklin County Detention Center and released the next day on $150 bail, according to a jail spokesman. Gosselin is scheduled to appear in district court on Sept. 4.Laundry owner Jonathan Latimer, who lives behind the coin laundry, told the Sun Journal that a customer had called him to the front of the store because a woman had left her purse on a chair. Latimer opened the purse to find out to whom it belonged and then called its owner.The purse owner had not realized it was missing, and wanted Latimer to check it because she had $118 in cash in it. The money was gone.Latimer said he called police and checked the video footage from his security cameras and saw a man who was obviously eyeing the purse as he washed his clothes. After a short while, the man took the wallet out of the purse, he said. The man stuffed the wallet into his pants and went outside, Latimer said.In footage from another camera outside, Latimer said he saw the man going through the wallet before going back in, putting it back into the purse and leaving. The camera also showed the owner of the purse and her husband driving by while the man stood outside going through her wallet, he said.“I was pretty sure he would come back ’cause his laundry was still going,” Latimer told the Sun Journal. After Wilton police Lt. Richard Caton IV saw the footage, he and another officer waited and nabbed Latimore when he returned.“The man denied it over and over,” Latimer said. “But then I told him ... see that little stick up in the corner ... that’s a camera.” 

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