Drug Court Failure Stole From 90-Year-Olds, Now Could Get Max

A career crook who stole $3,000 from an elderly man’s home in 2016 is facing up to 10 years in prison.

Andre Figueroa, 37, was found guilty by a Monmouth County jury on Friday of third-degree burglary, third-degree theft and fourth-degree resisting arrest.

Because of his extensive rap sheet — including blowing an opportunity to clean up his act through Drug Court — the Long Branch man now faces a minimum of five years behind bars with no chance of parole.

Figueroa was arrested before midnight on Dec. 5, 2016, after police chased him to the parking lot of Vic’s restaurant on Main Street.

Police said they had seen Figueroa sneak from behind a home on Bradley Boulevard wearing a red headlamp and carrying a black bag.

The residents of the home, two brothers in their 90s, were asleep while Figueroa made off with clothes, a wallet, credit cards, a Social Security card, a driver’s license and about $3,000 in cash, police said.

The burglar had entered the home by cutting out a window screen.

During the foot chase, the burglar dumped the loot on a sidewalk, police said.

Figueroa has an adult criminal record dating back to 1998, according to public court records that do not show the instances in which he was arrested but never convicted in Superior Court.

He pleaded guilty in 2013 to third-degree burglary charges and was sentenced to five years in prison with two years of parole ineligibility.

He pleaded guilty to 2008 charges of third-degree burglary and was sentenced in 2010 to five years of probation in Drug Court.

He was sentenced in 2006 to four years for 2005 charges of third-degree theft, to which he pleaded guilty.

In 2004 he was sentenced to three years probation for a guilty plea to first-degree possession of cocaine in 2003.

In 2002 he was sentenced to three years on third-degree burglary charges as a result of a plea.

And in 1999, he got four years in a plea to 1998 third-degree burglary charges.

He is scheduled to be sentenced by Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley, sitting in Freehold Borough, on May 18.