Mahanoy Township Police bust burglary ring; three accused
MOREA – Three people are accused of stealing over $22,000 from multiple locations in Mahanoy Township and elsewhere.
Mahanoy Township Police Patrolman Harry Brown and Schuylkill County Detective Thomas Robin filed charges Friday.
Jonathon Carvajal, 29, of 414 Pottsville Street, Minersville; Skylar Andruchek, 31, of 429 Carbon Street, Minersville; and Olivia Blair, 28, of 275 Zion Church Road, Chicora, are all wanted on felony charges related to the burglary ring.
According to the criminal complaint, the investigation began in October when police were called to Fabcon near Morea on Oct. 23 around 10am for a reported burglary.
Employees there found that a trailer and a building were broken into, with locks cut by bolt cutters.
Tools and other items were stolen, eventually discovered to total $14,000.
A white Dodge pickup truck was seen on camera entering the property on Oct. 21 around 2:30pm, leaving an hour later with a stolen saw visible in the back.
The truck had also been captured entering the property around 12:30am Oct. 15, leaving half an hour later. A white man with a mask and a woman were caught on video burglarizing the Fabcon facility.
Fabcon staffers recognized the truck as that of a former employee’s, Skylar Andruchek’s. The woman was identified as his girlfriend, Olivia Blair.
On Oct. 24, Mahanoy Township Police, with the help of Pottsville Police, tracked Andruchek down in the city, at a home at 1814 3rd Avenue.
The same pickup truck seen on camera was parked out front and Andruchek gave Brown consent to search it. Inside, he found a saw hidden under clothing. The saw, Brown wrote, still had concrete dust falling out of it, and was believed to be swiped from Fabcon.
The truck was seized and a search warrant was obtained later that day.
Andruchek, Brown wrote, told police no one else had used the truck besides him and, when officers asked to search the home in Pottsville, he said he didn’t have the keys to get in.
The keys, he said, were at a home in the Lewistown Valley, where he also had more tools. Andruchek offered to meet police there.
Tamaqua Police watched the home until Mahanoy Township Police arrived.
They did, Andruchek didn’t, Brown wrote.
While in the Lewistown Valley, police discovered via the homeowner that Andruchek had been evicted from the property, but wiring and tools were still inside.
At the same time, the Schuylkill County Communications Center was alerted that Andruchek, Blair, and Carvajal were removing items from 1814 3rd Avenue and hiding them in the woods.
Pottsville Police responded and found Carvajal removing a vacuum, believed to be stolen, from the home and placing it outside.
When the man saw the officer, he took the vacuum back inside.
All three suspects were outside on the porch when Brown arrived, and several stolen items — swiped from Fabcon, and in another incident from another man at the Comfort Inn on Oct. 18 — were located. Video footage from the Comfort Inn incident showed the same white pickup in the area.
The clothes Blair and Andruchek were seen on video in were also found in the pickup truck, Brown said.
Andruchek, police said, provided written consent to search the home in Pottsville, where items swiped from a jobsite in Tremont Township were found, including spools of wire.
A neighbor’s Ring doorbell camera showed Andruchek and Blair unloading the swiped items into the home, including drills, saws, and more.
A search warrant was obtained for the home in the Lewistown Valley, where several more items were found, including a shopvac labelled for a contactor working at the jobsite in Tremont Township.
Wiring found in the searches was determined to be from ARC Electric, swiped from 100 Logistics Drive in the township, worth $8,000.
Andruchek and Blair are wanted on felony burglary, criminal trespass, theft, and receiving stolen property charges, among others.
Carvajal is wanted on one count each of felony theft, receiving stolen property, and misdemeanor tampering with evidence.
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