2008

Diamond Cutter Arrested for Stealing

October 2008

Moshe Tsitsaushivili, a diamond cutter, who was charged with stealing diamonds from a jeweler in Yorktown Heights, New York, back in 1989, was recently arrested by authorities, after being a suspect in a number of thefts, possibly in four different states.

Tsitsaushivili is alleged to have worked for various jewelers, for little or no pay in order to prove himself, but would make off with a diamond (or diamonds) during a lunch break and never return, authorities charge.

The diamond cutter admits to traveling between Israel, Australia, Canada, and the United States for the past 18 years.

He is being held on a felony larceny charge in Westchester after being caught by border patrol crossing into New York from Canada this past week with a fake passport from Israel. Warrants for his arrest had been issued in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Meanwhile, this afternoon The Journal News website out of Westchester County reported that Tsitsaushivili, 41, said he turned himself in to appease his ex-wife.

He told the newspaper that while the police account of his past was mostly correct, but the Yorktown jeweler's theft was "only 10 percent" of the $35,000 value on police record.

"I asked for a job and I saw diamonds, and I took them," he told The Journal News. "I did it for the money. I didn't want to work. It was easy money."