Cleaning woman charged with stealing client's heirloom diamond ring

Police also want to talk with other clients Editor’s note: This story originally appear in last week’s Photo News, a sister publication of The Warwick Advertiser. Following it’s publication, Detective Jim Frankild at the Monroe Police Department contacted the newspapers to ask whether the story could be printed in other communities. The detective also asked that anyone who employed Roseann Korzelius-Perez or used her Monroe-based cleaning business to call him at 782-8644 regardless of whether or not they notice any jewelry missing from their home. By Bob Quinn Monroe — Village Police have charged a Monroe cleaning woman with stealing an heirloom diamond ring worth $25,000 from one of her clients. Police said the suspect, 44-year-old Roseann Korzelius-Perez of Monroe, pried the diamond loose from its setting, replaced it with cubic zirconia and then hide the three-carat gem in the garage of an unsuspecting elderly neighbor. According to Det. James Frankild, the case began last Wednesday, July 20, when a man came to police headquarters on Stage Road to report that someone had stolen the diamond out of his wife’s engagement ring and replaced it with a cubic zirconia. The man told police that on the previous Friday, his wife had taken off her rings off and left them on a counter in their house. He also said that the woman who cleaned their home came this same day as scheduled. While the wife was driving to work the following Monday, she saw that something looked wrong with her ring. The ring was brought to a local jeweler who advised that the stone was not a diamond, but a cubic zirconia, and the jeweler suggested they go to the police. 'Only one with opportunity’ “Our investigation revealed that the cleaning lady would have been to only one with the opportunity to have stolen the diamond from the setting,” Frankild said. “We interviewed her at her home and at police headquarters. After our interview we were able to recover the stolen diamond, which had been hidden in the garage of an elderly neighbor, who was unaware that it was even there. A local jeweler confirmed that the diamond was the one stolen from the victims with help from a prior appraisal of the ring and the stone.” On Tuesday, July 26, police charged Korzelius-Perez, described by police as the owner of CSI cleaning service in Monroe, with third-degree grand larceny, a felony. She was arraigned in Monroe Village Court and sent to Orange County Jail on $1,000 bail. Gone in 30 seconds The diamond, estimated to be worth more than $25,000, was a family heirloom that had been handed down for several generations. By contrast, synthetic cubic zirconia has remained an economically important competitor for diamonds since 1976 because of its low cost, durability and close visual likeness to diamond. Police said it is relatively easy to remove a diamond from a ring because it is typically secured with prongs, not glue, so even an untrained person can open the prongs in about 30 seconds and remove the stone. That apparently was the case in another case dating back to December 2005. An employee of a nail salon in Monroe used nail clippers to cut a diamond out of a customer’s engagement ring. This was done in the time it took the customer, who had removed her rings for the manicure, to go and return from the bathroom after washing her hands.