Savage Man Charged with Burglarizing Business — Sleeping, Showering There

A Savage man has been charged with burglarizing a Burnsville business and pawning items stolen from there during a “cocaine binge” in May.

Timothy Lee Bartizal, 41, is charged with three felonies: third-degree burglary, theft and receiving stolen property, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

A warrant for Bartizal’s arrest was issued Aug. 26, and he was arrested Sept. 1. He is free on bond, and has an omnibus hearing scheduled for Dec. 5 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, Burnsville police received a report of a business burglary about 6:30 a.m. on May 2.

Officers spoke with the business’s chief operating officer, who said Bartizal had worked at the company for several weeks.

Earlier on the morning of May 2, the chief operating officer said he had been at Bartizal’s home, where Bartizal had attempted suicide. While he was there, the man said he found pawn receipts from Pawn America in Burnsville beside Bartizal, who was unconscious in his car.

The man said he went to work and discovered that several items had been stolen over the weekend, including a PowerPoint projector valued at $500, five Dell computers valued at $2,500 each and five computer monitors worth $1,250 each.

Also missing were a drill with a charger, a Nikon digital camera, a portable DVD player and a pair of head shears, the man reported. He said a petty-cash drawer had been pried open. The money had been removed.

He told police that Bartizal didn’t have permission to enter the business over the weekend, and apparently had somehow obtained a master key.

On May 4, Burnsville police interviewed Bartizal at the hospital. Bartizal told them that he had been on a “cocaine binge” that weekend and that he had let himself into the business, where he spent the entire weekend, including sleeping, showering and eating.

Bartizal told police that he was “very high” on cocaine when he arrived at the business and didn’t remember much. He admitted pawning four items that he had stolen from the business, but denied taking any computers.

“[Bartizal] insisted that he would be able to recover the computers for the officers, but he failed to do so in the ensuing weeks,” the complaint says.

Bartizal’s criminal history includes a 2002 conviction for theft and a 2003 conviction for check forgery. In 1989, he was convicted of attempting to sell cocaine.