JOSEPH Lee, 26, who was arrested on May 2, 2024 for stealing two vacuum cleaners and a humidifier from Marianas Eye Institute, is facing another theft charge, this time for stealing a brush cutter from a Garapan resident.
He and Gyles Ruluked, 39, were charged with burglary and theft and appeared in Superior Court for a bail hearing on May 9, 2024 for the theft at the eye clinic on April 28, 2024.
Lee and 25-year-old Anthony Ilo were arrested on May 2, 2024 in Garapan while Ruluked was arrested on May 8, 2024 in Kagman II.
Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho set the preliminary hearing for Lee and Ruluked for May 15, 2024, and remanded both to the Department of Corrections after imposing a $25,000 bail on each of them.
On May 10, 2024, Lee appeared in court again, this time with Ilo, for a theft case involving a Mitsubishi brush cutter.
According to Police Lt. Catherine B. Pangelinan, on the same day the burglary and theft at the eye clinic was reported to the police, she received a phone call from a resident of an apartment in Garapan, saying that her brush cutter was stolen.
On May 6, 2024, DPS Detectives Daniel Kaipat and Vincent Rangamar met with Glarisha Mabel at a residence near the old Japanese Jail. She told them that it was Ilo who took the brush cutter and it was Lee who sold it to a resident of Dandan. Mabel said she was with Lee and Ilo in a white Kia Seltos when the theft of the brush cutter and its sale in Dandan occurred.
After a search warrant was issued by Associate Judge Teresa Kim-Tenorio, police recovered the stolen brush cutter from the Dandan resident, who said it was Lee who sold him the brush cutter.
In the theft case against Lee and Ilo involving the brush cutter, Judge Camacho set Lee’s preliminary hearing for May 13, 2024 and Ilo’s for May 15, 2024. The judge also imposed a $25,000 bail each on Lee and Ilo.
In December 2023, Lee was arrested for robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon and disturbing the peace after he attacked with a knife a resident who caught him stealing $5,000 worth of various items at a house on Navy Hill.
