Suspect Arrested in Penney’s TV Warehouse Heist

Thieves driving a stolen tractor rig cut a fence at J.C. Penney Co.’s western regional warehouse in Buena Park and hooked up a trailer containing $124,000 worth of television sets, police said.

Police found 279 of the sets Thursday night in the garage of a Los Angeles home. Someone saw scores of Penney’s boxes being unloaded from a truck and called the department-store chain.

Robin Jenine Williams, 24, was arrested at the home on suspicion of grand theft, Buena Park police spokesman Terry Branum said. He said Williams, who works in customer service at a Redondo Beach Mervyn’s store, was booked into Orange County Jail. Her bail was set at $10,000.

Branum said that at least two, and perhaps three, suspects are being sought in connection with the heist, which netted 800 televisions.

Sometime before dawn Monday, someone stole a tractor rig from Nolex Paper Co. down the street from the Penney’s warehouse, police said.

A fence that surrounds the warehouse parking lot at 6131 Orangethorpe Ave. was cut and a trailer containing the television sets was hooked up and driven out.

On Wednesday, the tractor-trailer was found abandoned in Inglewood.

On Thursday, a Los Angeles resident called Penney’s and reported seeing “tons” of the chain’s boxes being unloaded from a rental truck, Branum said. He said officers obtained a search warrant for the home at 9008 S. Hoover St. and arrested Williams there.

Branum said no other trailers in the warehouse were tampered with, leading investigators to believe that the thieves “either had firsthand knowledge of the place or got lucky.”