Man faces deportation after $600,000 jewelry heist

• Reprints

Updated: January 12, 2012 8:13AM

Federal authorities have initiated deportation proceedings against a 51-year-old man, after he was convicted of stealing $600,000 worth of jewelry from the trunk of a car parked outside a Naperville motel.

Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, confirmed former Berwyn resident Harold Guzman was taken from DuPage County Jail and put in federal custody. Guzman “will be placed into removal proceedings and scheduled for a hearing in federal immigration court,” Montenegro said via e-mail.

Naperville police in February arrested Guzman on felony charges of burglary and theft. Guzman pleaded guilty Tuesday in DuPage County Circuit Court to the burglary count, with the theft charge dismissed in exchange for that plea, according to court records.

Paul Darrah, spokesman for State’s Attorney Robert Berlin. said Judge Blanche Hill Fawell sentenced Guzman to six months in jail. Fawell also placed him on 2 1/2 years of probation and assessed $405 in fines and legal costs, Darrah said.

Guzman has spent 302 days in jail since being arrested, and thus has completed his term, Darrah said.

Police were called on Oct. 28, 2010 to the parking lot of the Red Roof Inn, at the southeast corner of Diehl Road and Route 59 on Naperville’s far northwest side, court records showed.

They were met there by a traveling jewelry salesman from Cincinnati, Ohio, court records indicated. The man told investigators he locked several cases filled with silver jewelry in the trunk of his 2010 Honda Accord before spending the night in one of the motel’s rooms, according to records.

The salesman awakened the next day to find his “extensive jewelry collection with an estimated retail value of $600,000” had been stolen, police Cmdr. Brian Cunningham said earlier this year in a written statement.

Investigators ultimately learned the salesman “was specifically targeted due to the amount of jewelry he was transporting,” Cunningham said.

The investigation culminated in Guzman’s Feb. 8 arrest. ICE agents soon after placed a “no bond” hold on him.

In addition to ICE officials, police received assistance in the case from agents of the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Berwyn and Oak Park police departments, Cunningham said.