Resident Trooper Greg Naylor warns the rise in crime here has become epidemic

By Lloyd Garrison

There has been a notable increase in criminal activity in and around  Norfolk since the last issue of Norfolk Now featured the arrest of Christopher Goodall.

Goodall, who said he was suffering from pain pill withdrawal, confessed to stealing copper downspouts from the Congregational Church and the Battell Stoeckel Estate and for the subsequent theft of a wallet and cash from the home of  Clinton Webb Jr., his next door neighbor.

As often happens in cases involving low degrees of larceny and burglary, Goodall was released on bail while awaiting trail in Bantam Superior court, whose case load is currently under stress.

To Naylor, the courts risk becoming revolving doors in which accused criminals driven by addiction are left free to continue stealing to support their habit. “This can lead to a progression of more serious crimes,” he says, “until a determined addict may commit an act of violence to avoid discovery. You have to ask whether the criminal justice system hasn’t become an enabler.”

The uptick in criminal activity here has ranged from more than 30 thefts from unlocked cars in and around town during December to two home invasions. One was on Parker Hill Road that resulted in a stolen TV. A second break-in led to the gutting of copper pipes from the basement of a home under foreclosure at 1241 Litchfield Road.

Naylor contends that Norfolk, with its relative affluence and homes  that are often spaced well apart on secondary roads, is a prime target for addicts as well as professional criminals coming up Route 272 and Route 8 from Torrington and Waterbury.

“These are often seasoned criminals,” he says. “They wear gloves. We recently got a warrant  to search a home in Bristol that uncovered an assault rifle and dozens of cameras, laptops and power tools.

Following up on clues stemming from a case being investigated by Naylor in Norfolk, state police have also broken up a small amphetamine lab in Northfield, an unincorporated town within Litchfield Township.

The most recent and potentially deadly incident unfolded well after midnight on Jan. 23 when Naylor’s colleague, Trooper Chris Sorrell, was patrolling Route 41 in Lakeville when he attempted to stop  a veteran car thief, Tony Machia, 30, of Falls Village. A check revealed that the pickup Machia was driving had been stolen in Salisbury.

Machia had been arrested 14 times since 2002, had stolen seven vehicles and was arrested four times for drunken driving. He immediately led Sorrel and another cruiser on a three hour chase that exceeded 75 mph.

Machia reportedly twice crossed the center lane, narrowly missed colliding with a car at a stop light and rammed the second cruiser on the passenger side at a roadblock on Sugar Hill Road.

He sped on until stop sticks flattened two of the truck’s tires along 272 in South Norfolk. Machia pressed on for half a mile until coming to a halt on Mountain Road. When apprehended, he told Sorrell he had no intention of stopping car thefts or giving up drinking. He had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system when handcuffed.

On Oct. 25, Trooper Gregory Fascendini, who arrested Machia for being drunk and smashing a stolen car belonging to a woman in Falls Village, predicted that “eventually an incident with Machia will end in the fatality of himself or another.”

To Naylor, the Machia case is but one of many serious incidents that that threaten to overwhelm law enforcement’s ability to respond. “Court dockets are over crowded,” he says. “Judges are under pressure to cut the costs of long jail terms, and both state and local police are hard pressed to keep up with investigating the increase in cases that exhaust our resources.””

To make matters worse, Troop B at the North Canaan Barracks will be minus a cruiser for as long as it takes a body shop to restore the passenger side that was struck by a defiant Machia.

The good news is that the judge set bail for Machia at $100,000, a fee he can ill afford.