Watertown police have arrested a husband and wife suspected of committing robberies in Watertown and Naugatuck after determining that a person who they had previously arrested was not the robber.
On the morning of July 23, a man approached an 80-year-old woman while she was getting a cart inside the Stop & Shop supermarket on Straits Turnpike, grabbed her purse, knocked her to the ground and drove away, police said.
After the crime, police arrested a 28-year-old Waterbury man, but said they discovered some discrepancies.
No information was released on what the discrepancies were, but that led to police collecting more evidence and releasing the original suspect.
With a new investigation underway, police received some information about robberies in Naugatuck that had been committed by a man with a similar description to the culprit in the Watertown case, police said.
Joseph Smith, 29, of Waterbury, was identified as the new suspect and police obtained surveillance footage that showed him cashing checks in the company of a woman, police said. Police would later determine that the woman as Smith’s wife, Kimberly Dimaria-Smith, 26, and obtained arrest warrant for both of them.
Naugatuck police arrested Joseph Smith on Aug. 21.
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As he was in Waterbury Superior Court on Aug. 22 to face charges out of Naugatuck, Watertown police arrested him in connection with their case and charged him with assault of an elderly person in the third degree, reckless endangerment in the second degree, larceny in the second degree, credit card theft, two counts of illegal use of a credit card, robbery in the third degree, breach of peace in the second degree, four counts of conspiracy to commit identify theft in the second degree, four counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, four counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the third degree and four counts of conspiracy to commit larceny in the sixth degree.
Bond was set at $200,000.00.
Watertown police also arrested Kimberly Dimaria-Smith on Aug. 21 and charged her with four counts of identity theft in the second degree, four counts of criminal impersonation, four counts of third-degree forgery and four counts of sixth-degree larceny. She was held on a court-set bond of $100,000.00 court set bond and will be arraigned today.
Watertown Police investigators have been in touch with the Waterbury States Attorney’s Office about the original arrest of the 28-year-old Waterbury resident, said a nolle will be entered in the case and the defense attorney has made a motion to dismiss.
