LAWRENCE — A city woman told police she tried to use an ATM card belonging to Andover Finance Committee member Stephen Stapinski while he was in police custody after his arrest at a South Union Street rooming house early on Dec. 20.
Roxanne Noltemy, 32, of 77 S. Union St., turned herself in to Lawrence District Court yesterday on an arrest warrant charging her with attempting to commit a crime — larceny over $250. She will be arraigned Jan. 20.
According to a police report filed in court, Noltemy admitted to officers she tried to use the card while Stapinski was in custody. She told police that Stapinski was in her room at the rooming house with another woman with his pants down when a scuffle broke out. During the fight, she said all of his belongings fell to the floor and someone picked them up. She told police someone by the name of "Dan" asked her to try to use the card, according to the report.
Stapinski, 56, of 12 Apache Road, has been charged with assaulting two women and breaking a window at the rooming house. According to reports, Stapinski told detectives he was checking his properties in Lawrence about 2 a.m., and was flagged down by a woman who asked him for a ride home.
He agreed to give her a ride, but told her he was going to stop at a restaurant to get something to eat, and needed to stop at an ATM to get money — the same one where police said Noltemy tried to later use the card.
Stapinski told police he went inside the rooming house to use the bathroom and was approached by two men, one of whom asked what he was doing with his wife.
A fight ensued and Stapinski claims someone reached into his pocket, took all his money and credit cards, and he was told to leave. He told police he was banging on the door demanding they return his credit cards and broke the window while knocking on it.
He told police someone opened the front door and threw his belongings into a snowbank but he realized his ATM card was still missing.
The two women told police Stapinski assaulted them. One of the women told police that Stapinski pushed his way through the front door, chased her into the apartment, grabbed her around the neck, and tore open the shirt of a female friend in the apartment. According to the police report, officers observed that one woman had red marks on her neck, and the other had red marks on her upper chest. According to the police report, officers noticed a small cut and blood on Stapinski's hand.
Three days after his arrest on charges in the alleged assaults, Stapinski reported the ATM card missing to police. Detectives then went to the rooming house, where the day manager gave police Stapinski's ATM card. The manager told police that Noltemy had handed him the card and told him it was the guy's card from the other night.
When the detectives interviewed Noltemy in her room she told them she had tried to use the card after Stapinski was arrested. She originally told police she watched Stapinski use the ATM from a nearby convenience store, but then said she was in the car with him when he used it.
Stapinksi's lawyer, Scott Gleason, said, "Mr. Stapinski is very happy and thankful for the work of the Lawrence Police Department."
"As he had indicated, he is, in fact, the victim of a crime," Gleason said. "That has now obviously been proven and further proven by this individual's (Noltemy's) story, which directly contradicts itself when she said she had seen him at the bank from the convenience store. Finding that impossible she then changed her story and said she was in the vehicle."
Gleason said it appeared that attempts were being made to "re-victimize the victim, which is a common occurrence with thieves." He also disputed Noltemy's claims that Stapinski's pants were down and called the woman a "liar."
