SALEM — It was around 3 a.m. yesterday the first time patrolmen spotted Michael Conway walking around the streets of Salem with an empty bag.
An hour later, the officers saw Conway, 34, again. This time his bag was full and slung over his shoulder. So the officers caught up with him, hoping to figure out what Conway had just acquired in the early morning hours before most stores are open.
Conway, of 24 Putnam St., Salem, is now facing charges of breaking into three cars on Broad Street, and two counts each of receiving stolen property and felony larceny, based on what officers found in the bag. And more charges are expected once police identify the owners of several other items Conway was carrying, police say.
He's also facing the revocation of bail in two cases for which he was already on probation.
Salem police Lt. Conrad Prosniewski said that when the patrolmen caught up with Conway on Palmer Street and asked him what was in the bag, he responded by claiming they were his former wife's sex toys.
The officers weren't buying it and took a look inside. They spotted a brown wallet with the license and credit cards of a Broad Street man inside. Conway allegedly told the officers that the wallet belonged to his former wife's new "flavor of the month."
But Conway, who has a four-page criminal record, had no explanation for the checkbook belonging to another Broad Street couple, the lottery tickets, Garmin GPS device, compact discs, an American Express receipt, a couple of Lynn parking tickets, two cell phone chargers, a pink iPod and pink camera, a key to a Nissan, a jewelry box filled with gold charms and a watch.
Turns out many of those items, including the wallet, were taken from three vehicles parked on Broad Street, Prosniewski said. The owners of the vehicles identified their items one by one, as police looked at ransacked cars and a Ford Explorer.
Police still don't know who owns the iPod, camera, jewelry box, Nissan key and watch.
Defense lawyer Joyce Motta says her client "was just walking down the street" when the officers approached him for no reason.
Conway interrupted his lawyer, asking the judge to send him to a drug treatment program rather than jail.
"I've got a screaming drug habit," Conway told Salem District Court Judge Richard Mori. Because of budget cuts, however, Mori told Conway that he'll have to ask at the Middleton Jail to be sent for treatment.
Mori ordered Conway held on $5,000 cash bail and detained him without bail on the probation violations.
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