BERKSHIRE EAGLE- February 23, 2007

PITTSFIELD >> Two Pittsfield men were found not guilty yesterday of breaking into the coin vaults of washing machines at a Linden Street Laundromat two years ago. Rodney S. Jones Jr., 18, of Linden Street, and Marcelle N. King, 19, of Crane Avenue, were each found not guilty of 10 counts of breaking into a depository, a felony that is punishable for up to 20 years in state prison or up to 2 1/2 years in county jail.

Family and friends of the men cheered as Central Berkshire District Court Judge James B. McElroy made his ruling at the conclusion of the jury-waived trial in the upstairs courtroom. This angered the judge, who ordered the crowd out of the courtroom.

The daylong trial was consumed largely by testimony from Dawn Taylor-Thompson, 39, who owned the former Sudds Mill Laundromat that had been robbed of quarters from its machines on numerous occasions in the fall of 2005. She alleged that Jones was the young man whom she caught breaking into the machines shortly before midnight on Nov. 30, 2005, and King was reportedly keeping lookout for him. She reported that 10 machines suffered $5,000 in damages, and she was unsure about how much money in quarters had been stolen from that incident.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew G. Fontaine had also presented the testimony of Detective Dale Eason, Lt. Michael Wynn and Investigator Mark Trapani. Police alleged that they found Jones and King coming out of Jones' house minutes after the incident, and that they fit Thompson's physical description of the two culprits. Jones and King were both carrying drinks which they had just purchased from a variety store on Onota Street. They both denied ever being at the Laundromat. Trapani noted that fingerprints were hard to come by because of the Laundromat's heavily-used machines, and the use of detergents and liquids.

Jones and King's attorneys, John F. McLaughlin and Marc C. Vincelette, respectively, argued that little evidence supported the allegations against their clients. They argued that police didn't recover a large amount of quarters from the area and weren't able to gather fingerprints. "The Laundromat operated 24 hours a day, and was left wide open without any (security)," Vincelette said. "This could have happened at any time, and there's no evidence to suggest they're the ones that broke the machines open." Vincelette also pointed out that Thompson said she allegedly saw Jones holding a pencil in one of his hands, but never mentioned whether she noticed a screwdriver or any other burglarious tool in her statement to police. "There's no way that pencils can pry open metal objects," he said.

Fontaine argued that Thompson had been certain about most of the details in her statement to police, and that she had only been slightly confused about her identification of the defendants.

Jones has one case pending in District Court on allegations that he sold drugs on Jan. 25 and Feb. 2 near St. Joseph's High School.