Monsey Cleaning Lady Arrested at JFK on Jewelry-Theft Charges

A Hungarian housekeeper accused of swiping $20,000 worth of jewelry from a Monsey family was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport trying to leave the country, Ramapo police said Thursday.Police arrested Katarina Geresiova, 48, on felony charges connected to the reported May 21 jewelry theft from a former employer,Detective Lt. Brad Weidel said.

Police detectives had been looking for her and learned she was heading home to Hungary, Weidel said.

They beat her to JFK in Queens and arrested her Wednesday as she checked in with an airline for her flight to her native country, he said.

“She was trying to get out of the United States,” Weidel said. “Our detectives grabbed her at JFK just before she boarded her plane.”

Police charged Geresiova with third-degree grand larceny and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property. She was being held on $7,500 bail in the county jail after being arraigned on the charges in Town Court.

Geresiova worked as a live-in housekeeper for a family. She indicated to police that she had not been paid all of her wages and that was one of the reasons she took the jewelry, Weidel said. The family denied that she hadn’t been fully paid, he said.

Weidel said detectives found some jewelry reported to have been stolen in Geresiova’s possession.

Police knew Geresiova’s identity from the family, who accepted her passport as identification, Weidel said, adding he didn’t know how long Geresiova had been living in the United States or working as a housekeeper.

She was in the country legally, he said.

“The victim wrote down a name and number from the passport,” Weidel said. “She was living with the family and she was in the United States on a visa that was about to expire.”

After the family reported their jewelry missing, detectives started searching the Monsey area for Geresiova. He said they were told that her visa was close to expiring and that she might head home.

“We kept monitoring and calling our contacts with the airlines,” Weidel said. “We had good information she was leaving and interrupted her trip.”

{LoHud/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}