PHILADELPHIA A handyman who stole more than $70,000 from an 80-year-old member of Franklin Mint FCU by stealing the man’s ATM card from his mail on Wednesday was sentenced to time served to 23 months in prison and to pay restitution.
Antonio Puzzangara, 23, pleaded to felony charges of identity theft and theft by deception in February. Puzzangara was hired as a handyman for the victim in May and had access to his house. At some point, he stole an ATM card for the victim’s Franklin Mint FCU account out of the mail and activated it at an ATM.
Puzzangara, who was jailed from Oct. 24, 2012 to Feb. 21, 2013, has repaid more than $16,000 to date and the credit union provided the victim with a portion of his lost money.
Puzzangara secretly began draining the credit union account to feed his heroin addiction, prosecutors said. Credit union records show Puzzangara made 220 unauthorized transactions at various credit union branches, ATMs and Wawa stores. He eventually was identified on surveillance videos taken at the credit union’s ATMs.
Police were first notified of the thefts when a fraud investigator for the credit union filed a report that money was missing from the victim’s account. The victim had called the credit union requesting a new ATM card, saying his had never arrived in the mail. That was because Puzzangara had intercepted it and rang up $71,180 in unauthorized transactions and ATM withdrawals, according to court records.
