In an interesting larceny case, a Westport man was recently charged with defrauding a Fairfield resident in a transaction involved what was supposed to be dirt from the original Yankee Stadium. The Westport man is accused of requesting that the alleged victim invest money in various marketing gift items, including key chains said to contain dirt from the ballpark.

The alleged victim, according to sources, provided the man with 35,000 for a 20 percent share in the investment deal between 2008 and 2009, but the deal never panned out. Police have charged the man with first-degree larceny and third-degree forgery.

The Westport man is accused of presenting phony bank documents claiming that the 52-year-old had over $1 million with which to pay the Fairfield investor. Those documents were reportedly presented after the investor became suspicious. Published reports say that he claimed to have the money in an account at Barclay's Bank in England.

The charges came after police investigation found that the bank documents were forged and that the man did not have insufficient funds in his account to take care of the investment.

In Connecticut, larceny refers to any kind of theft crime. It encompasses such crimes as embezzlement, obtaining property by false pretenses or promises, acquiring property lost, mislaid or delivered by mistake, extortion, conversion, shoplifting, and a number of other offenses. There are various degrees of larceny ranging from the misdemeanor to the felony level, depending on the value of the items.

Source: Connecticut Post, "Fraud charged in Yankees 'dirt' scam," January 16, 2012.