Police: employees robbed Home Depot blind

TRUMBULL - Police say Christmas was nearly every day for seven employees of the local Home Depot store.

When the customers had all gone and the doors were locked for the night, police said the seven went on their own shopping spree stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in power tools and other merchandise.

On Thursday, police said they arrested one of the seven and said arrest warrants are being served for the others.

Romie Saunders, 24, of Lansing Street, Bridgeport, was charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny and third-degree larceny. He was released after posting bond.

During an audit of the store, police said store officials determined a large number of power tools were missing from the store.

When they confronted the night supervisor, Gregory Alston, 29, of Wilson Street, Stamford, police said he admitted to store officials that for a “loan,” he had allowed his associates to go on a shopping spree at least three times a week between June and October 2015.

Police said Alston estimated his associates stole as much as $300,000 in merchandise. Alston was subsequently fired, police said.

Police said they subsequently viewed surveillance video from the store. They said the video showed that each night between 12:30 and 2 a.m., the employees would assemble at one point in the store with shopping carts and begin going through the store loading the carts with merchandize from the shelves.

One employee is seen with an interior door in his shopping cart, another had two welders, while a third’s cart was loaded with vacuum cleaners, police said.

Police said Alston is seen in videos opening outside roll down door in the garden center where a number of vehicles are waiting for the night’s booty.

They said Saunders later posted on Facebook’s CT Tag Sale numerous items for sale that he had taken from the store.