A Moorpark man arrested on suspicion of theft last weekend – and arrested seven times in the last two years – is now believed to be the suspected prowler captured on a surveillance video camera at a home in the Valencia Summit neighborhood last week.
Christopher Thomas Marchetti, 28, was arrested Saturday shortly after 7:30 a.m. on suspicion of petty theft and trespassing.
“On March 13, a Valencia resident on the 24000 block of Tossano Drive reported the theft of a lockbox containing a key,” Shirley Miller, spokeswoman for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station told The Signal Monday.
“The male suspect was captured by the homeowner’s surveillance camera, and his image was widely circulated throughout social media community groups,” she said.
“Patrol deputies and detectives worked together, and on Saturday, five days after the reported crime, arrested suspect Christopher Marchetti,” Miller said.
Deputies made the arrest after a video image of the suspect was widely circulated in the press and on social media.
Marchetti is suspected of being the prowler who, in the dead of night, stole a lock box containing a key after trying to force his way into an occupied home in Valencia Summit.
He was seen trying to break into at least two homes in the Valencia Summit neighborhood shortly after 2:30 a.m. Monday, according to one Valencia Summit homeowner who went public with the suspect’s image in an effort to identify him.
Valencia Summit is a neighborhood north of McBean Parkway, east of Rockwell Canyon Road across from College of the Canyons and south of Valencia Boulevard.
A check of arrest records Tuesday revealed Marchetti was arrested earlier, less than three weeks prior to his arrest Saturday.
Deputies arrested him shortly after 3 p.m. on March 1 on suspicion of possessing burglary tools.
About five hours after his arrest, however, Marchetti was released from custody.
Prior to his two arrests this month, Marchetti had been arrested five times since April 2015. Although most of the arrests were for suspicion of having committed a misdemeanor, three of those arrests, however, were for felonies.
The most recent arrests marked the second time he’s been nabbed in less than a month.
Officers with the Burbank Police Department arrested Marchetti for a misdemeanor offense on Aug. 12 and, nine days later, arrested him again for a felony.
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