Accused East Lyme burglars charged with racketeering

East Lyme police have brought racketeering charges against the two men accused of burglarizing homes throughout the state and keeping the stolen goods at a local storage facility.

Patrolman Mark J. Comeau and Detective Donald Marr served Bernard E. McAllister with an arrest warrant during his scheduled court appearance in New London Thursday. The warrant charges him with eight burglaries and with collaborating with Mark Missino in a criminal enterprise

The police are expected to serve Missino with a similar warrant during an upcoming court appearance. They accuse the two men of burglarizing eight unoccupied homes north of Interstate 95 between Feb. 28, 2008, and April 4, 2010. The men allegedly ransacked the homes, stealing jewelry, money and other items that they carried out in purloined pillowcases.

In bringing the racketeering charge under the Connecticut Corrupt Organizations and Racketeering Activity Act, the police allege that each of the burglaries is interrelated; shares the similar purpose of monetary gain; targets similar victims (residential homeowners); and shares a common method of commission.

McAllister, 41, of Lisbon and Missino, 44, of Waterford have been held in state prison since November 2010, when East Lyme and state police discovered a storage facility packed with stolen items. The police spent months cataloging the items and working with law enforcement authorities throughout the state.

The men are charged with burglarizing homes in Clinton, East Lyme, Glastonbury, Groton, Guilford, Hebron, Madison, New Canaan, North Branford, Stamford, Wallingford, Westbrook and other towns in state police jurisdiction. In November, a federal grand jury indicted the two men on charges that they possessed 17 stolen firearms.

Though all of the cases center on the storage unit full of stolen goods, the local police until now had charged the two men only with first-degree larceny by possession.

Police said all the East Lyme homes were entered by use of a prying type of instrument, such as a screwdriver. The police found similar sneaker prints at five of the eight crime scenes and recovered stolen property from five of the burglaries in the storage facilities.

In two of the burglaries, a white four-door car, similar in appearance to the Nissan Maxima later recovered from the storage facility, was observed. In two of them, police found a honeycomb-pattern glove print similar to those found at some of the out-of-town burglaries.

The police said McAllister's cellphone records show that he was in the area of the storage unit before and after the burglaries.

The two men have been making regular court appearances throughout the state. It is unclear whether the cases eventually will be consolidated to one court.

Attorney Kevin Shay from the Chief State's Attorney's office is prosecuting the local cases.

McAllister is represented by attorney Joseph Jaumann of Bridgeport. Missino is represented by New London attorney Sebastian DeSantis.

k.florin@theday.com