Crime & Safety
Smash-and-Grab Burglar Pleads Guilty
Mark Swienton, 49, of Aurora pleads guilty to burglarizing the Napa Auto Parts store at 201 3rd St., St. Charles and a Clark gas station at 1362 W. Galena Boulevard.
The man accused of smash-and-grab burglaries in St. Charles and Aurora has pleaded guilty and could get up to seven years in prison.
According to an article in the Daily Herald, Mark Swienton, 49, of Aurora pleaded guilty to burglarizing the Napa Auto Parts store at 201 3rd St., St. Charles and a Clark gas station at 1362 W. Galena Boulevard.
Swienton will be sentenced in March.
Aurora investigators had been using a high-tech tracking device as part of a surveillance operation after they identified him as a suspect in numerous smash-and-grab burglaries that had been occurring throughout the area.
Reports do not say whether Swienton was linked to the smash-and-grab robbery of the Geneva Citgo station on March 15, 2013, but in the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed six other charges of burglar at four gas stations and two auto shops in Aurora in early 2013.
