Pearl River man busted for 17 car burglaries

An ex-convict who had served jail time for burglarizing cars did not learn his lesson because he was arrested Tuesday by Slidell police on 17 counts of simple burglary and one count of attempted burglary.

Michael Scott Nelson, 39, 292 Doe Run, Pearl River, has a long record with the police. His most recent spree of car burglaries goes back to January 2008, according to Slidell Police.

He was arrested on one burglary charge Oct. 30, after a witness saw him break into a car in the Northshore Hospital parking lot on Aug. 25. The witness was able to get the license plate number of Nelson’s car. Also, Lt. Kevin Dupuy recognized Nelson’s name from a March 22, 2000, arrest for which Nelson did seven years of a 12-year sentence for burglary, theft, forgery, possession of stolen property, possession of burglary tools and possession of marijuana.

When Nelson was arrested Oct. 30, he was also charged with two outstanding warrants from September for misuse of telephone communication and criminal trespassing.

While Nelson was in the St. Tammany Jail under a $20,000 bond for the August crime, Slidell detectives went back into the records to see if Nelson’s method of operation of breaking a car window and taking purses was present in other burglary complaints. They came up with 17 burglaries that dated back to January of this year. Dupuy said Nelson would look through the purse for valuables, taking jewelry and credit cards.

Nelson usually pawned the jewelry in New Orleans and used the credit cards only once before discarding them.

Detectives believe most of the jewelry will not be recovered, because the jewelry may have been melted down since the time frame for holding the possessions had passed in the pawn shops.

Capt. Kevin Foltz, police spokesman, said Nelson was brought back to the Slidell Jail to be booked on the new charges.