Rochester man arrested for causing $20,000 in damage to property

By Nora Eckert

December 21, 2021 09:45 AM

A 28-year-old Rochester man was arrested Monday morning after reportedly breaking into a property and stripping it of its the copper wiring, doing an estimated $20,000 in damage.

Matthew Tlougan faces charges of second-degree burglary and first-degree damage to property, according to Rochester Police Lt. Tom Faudskar.

Owners of a property in the 10 block of Seventh Avenue Southeast contacted police at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021, when they found bicycles strewn about the property and barricades they’d previously put up taken down. The owners were renovating the property and live out of town, and they had boarded up the entrance because of past issues with break-ins, said Faudskar.

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When the owners entered the home, they found clothing, bedding and alcohol, “which led them to believe that people had been breaking in and staying there overnight,” said Faudskar.

Officers helped the homeowners secure the residence again, and returned at 1 a.m. Dec. 20 to check on it. They found that the boards had been removed, and upon entering the property, discovered Tlougan in the basement burning plastic off of copper wiring so that he could sell the wire as scrap, said Faudskar.

“They found that basically all the wiring from the house had been stripped out,” said Faudksar, amounting to an estimated $20,000 of damage.

By Nora Eckert

Nora Eckert has previously worked with NPR, The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and undergraduate degree from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis. She’s reported on national investigations into jail suicides, how climate change disproportionately affects the urban poor, the spread of coronavirus in nursing homes and the race for artificial blood. She joined the Post Bulletin team in January 2021 as their investigative reporter.