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Published on 06/19/1995 All articles from this issue

Alleged furniture burglar at real estate sales arrested

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Six police agencies working together arrested a suspect June 9 on burglary charges in connection with 18 peninsula homes, including two in Los Altos, that were burgled between February and June, said Los Altos Police Sgt. Bob Lacey.

Each of the homes was listed for sale on the multiple listing service, for $375,000 and up, and filled with furniture rented to market the house. The thief was stealing all the furniture in the house, said Los Altos police officer Suzie Galvez.

Tonya Irla, 25, of Walker Street in Mountain View, was arrested of six charges of burglary. As of June 15, she was in custody at the Santa Clara County Correctional Center for Women in Milpitas.

She is held on a warrant for burglary with $200,000 bail and on a second warrant for drugs, with $10,000 bail. There are also warrants outstanding for her from Redwood City and San Mateo, said a spokeswoman at the correctional center.

Irla became a suspect in the burglaries after police found her fingerprint in one of the burgled homes, and it matched with hers that were already on file. Stanford police had arrested Irla in March in the middle of the night with a car full of furniture. There had been a burglary that evening in Menlo Park, but in March police did not connect her to the burglaries, Lacey said.

Police began watching Irla's Mountain View apartment on June 2, Lacey said. They saw furniture being moved in and out. It looked like she was selling from her apartment, Lacey said, not like a garage sale, but with people going in and coming out of the apartment.

A team of 25 to 30 officers, from Los Altos, Mountain View, Atherton, Menlo Park, San Mateo County and led by Palo Alto officers, took Irla into custody June 9 and began recovering stolen property.

Officers filled two 30- by 10-foot rented storage units. They worked from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. with moving crews who drove and loaded two large moving vans which followed the unmarked police cars. Officers recovered couches, lamps, end tables, Oriental rugs, vases of silk flowers, console TVs and some antiques, said Palo Alto Police Sgt. Dennis Burns.

"We found 150 items in Irla's apartment," Burns said. They also recovered 80 items in an adjacent apartment and 80 more in a house in East Palo Alto.

Officers were working from lists of property reported stolen from the houses for sale. Police have tentatively scheduled a viewing for today of all the furniture by the victims so they can identify their things.

"This was a really good example of a joint agency effort," Burns said.