A Queens woman who last month pleaded guilty to her role in stealing thousands of credit card numbers and bank account data from several Long Island Railroad ticket vending machines will be sentenced on Friday with two of her co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
Teodora Zaharia, 28, is among Romanian nationals who prosecutors said bugged ticket vending machines at Long Island Railraod stations at Bayside, Great Neck, Port Washington, Merillon Avenue, Greenvale and Sea Cliff with black bars equipped with hidden cameras and credit card-skimming devices.
Prosecutors had requested she be sentenced to nine months in prison and return $61,251.85 in cash found during an investigation of the Kew Gardens apartment she shared with her husband Valer after they were arrested on Oct. 28, 2013.
Police at the time said they saw the Zaharias removing what was later identified as skimming equipment from ticket machines they were monitoring at the Sea Cliff station.
Law enforcement officials were later led to the Elmhurst apartment shared by Dorin Husa, 37, and Niculae Petre, 45, where they recovered thousands of stolen credit card numbers, cash and paraphernalia that could be used to commit bank card fraud, including cameras, skimmers, plastic molds, memory cards, flash drives and computers.
In mid March, Husa and Petre each pleaded guilty to felony charges of criminal possession of forgery devices. Prosecutors have requested that Husa and Petre each be sentenced to one year in prison and forfeit $7,000 in cash recovered during a police investigation of their Elmhurst apartment.
Assistant District Attorney April Montgomery of the county’s Economic Crimes Bureau is prosecuting the case. Efforts to reach the Zaharias’ attorneys, Joseph Daniel and Shawk Turck, were unavailing. Law enforcement officials are still seeking Cezar Nastasa, who fled to the United Kingdom after Husa, Petre and the Zaharias were arrested.
Nastasa has been charged with grand larceny and conspiracy in addition to multiple counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, unlawful possession of a skimmer device and criminal possession of a forgery device. A warrant is out for his arrest.
