Lyndhurst police responded to 9 Polito Ave. at 8:22 a.m. on Monday, March 2, after property management reported copper theft and criminal mischief involving electrical transformers stored on the first floor of the parking garage in an isolated staging area, Lyndhurst Police Capt. Paul F. Haggerty said. The building manager told police he discovered several transformers had been damaged and stripped of their copper components, with the total cost of the damage and stolen materials estimated at more than $40,000, Haggerty said.
Video surveillance reviewed by the property manager showed a black early-2000s Ford F-150 entering the garage around 8:20 p.m. on Jan. 14, where two men were seen approaching and tampering with the electrical equipment, according to Haggery.
Detective Sgt. Christopher Cuneo used the township’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system to identify the vehicle’s registered owner as Mario Saltalamacchia, 39, of Garfield, who matched the individual seen in the video, Haggerty said. Cuneo later learned Saltalamacchia had scrapped the copper at a local scrap yard, Haggerty said…