A man who stole a van from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and burglarized a post office in Connecticut has pleaded guilty to burglary of a U.S. Post Office and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut.
Leon Clinedinst, 37, pleaded guilty in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut on September 3, 2020. He is facing a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Man on the run
According to court records, Clinedinst was discharged from Mount Sinai Hospital around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 25, 2020. Instead of leaving, he wandered around the hospital. Clinedinst picked up a hard hat, keys, a laptop bag, and an employee badge from the basement engineering area. He headed to the hospital garage and borrowed a van wearing the hard hat and the employee badge.
Clinedinst drove the van to the post office at 317 West Avenue in Stamford, Connecticut. It’s a distance of about 32 miles. He told investigators that he followed a white vehicle off the highway into the parking lot then decided to go inside.
Clinedinst, who is 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 145 pounds, entered the post office through a mail chute. He tampered with the video surveillance box, removed the security system, and turned around a camera that faced the cash registers.
A police officer caught Clinedinst exiting the building with a large rolling bin filled with unopened packages. The van was parked with the engine running. Officers found a second rolling bin filled with packages and the security system inside the post office.
Clinedinst had set off a burglar alarm while exiting the post office.
When investigators asked Clinedinst what he was going to do with the stolen packages, he said that he “would not have used a penny to buy drugs”. He admitted to using heroin in the past, but claimed that he had been sober for around 30 days.
Clinedinst has been detained since the day of the incident.