WILTON – Security cameras recorded a theft at M & J Laundromat on Depot Street last week and police didn’t have to search far for the suspect.

When Lee Gosselin, 32, of Bailey Island walked back into the laundry to get his clothes from the dryer, he was charged with theft of a wallet and violating bail conditions. He was arrested on the latter and booked at the Franklin County Detention Center on July 24 and released the following day on $150 bail, according to a jail spokesman. Gosselin is scheduled to appear in district court on Sept. 4.

Laundry owner Jonathan Latimer, who lives behind the laundromat, said Tuesday that he was called out front by a customer last Thursday and told a woman had left her purse on a chair. Latimer opened it, he said, to see who it belonged to and then called its owner.

The purse owner had not realized it was missing and wanted Latimer to check it because she had $118 in cash in it. The money was gone.

Latimer said he called police and went through film from his security cameras to see a man who was obviously eyeing the purse as he washed his clothes. After a short while, the man went over and took the wallet out of the purse, he said. He stuffed it into his pants and went outside, Latimer said.

Switching to film from an outside camera, Latimer said it showed the man going through the wallet before going back in and putting it back into the purse and leaving. The camera also showed the owner of the purse and her husband driving by while the man stood outside going through her wallet, he said.

“I was pretty sure he would come back ’cause his laundry was still going,” Latimer said. After Wilton police Lt. Richard Caton IV viewed the film, he and another officer waited and nabbed Latimore when he returned.

“The man denied it over and over,” Latimer said. “But then I told him … see that little stick up in the corner … that’s a camera.”