The sophomore arrested at Cap & Gown Club last weekend was charged yesterday with theft and possession of false documents.
A Cap member noticed Alex Pessala '09 of Westbury, N.Y., "going through coats" in the club's coatroom last Sunday morning around 2 a.m.
According to a police report published yesterday, Pessala, who is not a member of Cap, had "various items which did not belong to him" on his person when Borough Police officers searched him, and he presented police with a fake driver's license for identification.
A date has yet to be set for his arraignment. Pessala declined to be interviewed for this article.
Borough Police said they are treating the incident as separate from the string of thefts that occurred on Prospect Avenue on a Monday afternoon almost three weeks ago. In those incidents, wallets were stolen from six clubs' coatrooms, and fraudulent charges were made on several students' credit cards at nearby stores.
"We have a suspect, but it's an ongoing investigation," Borough Police Lieutenant Dave Dudeck said of the three-week-old thefts. He could not be reached for further comment.
Responding to the recent thefts, Interclub Council (ICC) president Will Scharf '08 said in an email that "all clubs are certainly aware of the problem, and we are all obviously attempting to prevent this sort of thing from happening again."
But Scharf, who is also president of Charter Club, declined to specify the measures Charter is taking in order to prevent thefts, citing a need to maintain "the element of surprise." He added that he could not provide information about the actions other clubs are taking.
The police report from last weekend's theft lists a "19-year-old resident of Princeton Township" as the victim. No other information was available about the items taken.
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