It took five tries, but Plymouth County prosecutors finally persuaded a judge to lock up Sunny McDonough, the alleged package thief accused of carrying out a multitown, multiyear crime spree across eastern Massachusetts.
Brockton District Court judge Jeffrey Clifford on Monday granted a prosecutor’s motion to revoke McDonough’s bail and sentenced her to 90 days in the Suffolk County House of Correction.
McDonough, who has denied all charges, was found to have violated her pre-trial conditions of release by failing one drug test and not showing up for two others.
Prosecutors had previously sought unsuccessfully to have her jailed four times — Oct. 29, Nov. 14, Dec. 3 and 11.
McDonough, 45, of East Bridgewater, faced increasing scrutiny after Plymouth police accused her of repeatedly breaking into the mailroom at the Redbrook development in South Plymouth over the summer.
She was caught on video, allegedly rifling through packages and walking out with a lot of merchandise, including designer sunglasses, bathing suits and a blender. Police could also see an unusual “tribal flower tattoo” on her lower back, which they said gave her away.
She had entered the locked mailhouse on Wareham Road in July and August wearing a Covid-style mask and using a key fob assigned to a resident, who told police it had been lost.
After the videos were circulated to law enforcement, a Wareham probation officer identified McDonough, saying she was “100 percent sure” she was the woman in the images.
The Plymouth case was the 15th against McDonough, court records show, who allegedly sold stolen merchandise through her Facebook “Couture Closet,” according to social media posts.
She has had similar larceny cases in Quincy, Ayer, Lowell, Cambridge, Woburn, Wrentham, Concord, Brockton, and Wareham courts, records show. She has also been a suspect in thefts in Norwood, Easton, Westford, Natick, Foxborough, Hudson, and even Nashua, NH, where she allegedly tried to return a stolen item to a HomeGoods store for credit, according to police reports.
But until now McDonough, whose day job was professional makeup and hair designer, spent less than two weeks in jail, sent there by Wareham District Court Judge Edward Sharkansky.
While on probation from Wareham District Court for stealing packages (including a mattress and a motorcycle seat) from a Middleborough apartment complex in July 2022, she was accused twice of stealing packages from an apartment complex in Tewksbury.
A hearing was held on March 20 last year to determine if she violated her probation.
McDonough said she was on a plane to the Bahamas when one of the thefts occurred, a claim seemingly bolstered by her lawyer, who produced a boarding pass.
But Sharkansky said he was sending her to jail based on Tewksbury police reports identifying her as the suspect in the thefts.
Sharkansky revoked her probation and sent her to jail for five days.
On Sept. 17, 2024, after she was charged with the Plymouth thefts, she faced a new violation of probation charge out of Wareham court.
This time, Sharkansky ordered her held for a few more days — based on a second possible probation violation.
On Jan. 6, she was in Brockton District Court to face new charges stemming from the search of her East Bridgewater home in late September.
After she was identified as a suspect in the Redbrook thefts, Plymouth police, as well as officers from Westford and East Bridgewater, who were also eyeing her for thefts, descended on her home, according to police reports.
On Sept. 17, police searched her house, her Infiniti SUV, (which was in an auto body shop) and a rental vehicle parked in her driveway, the police reports said.
They found a treasure trove of stolen items and incriminating evidence, according to an East Bridgewater police report.
They spotted the same clothing that she was allegedly seen wearing in surveillance videos, police said.
In her rental car, police found an Alpha Magnetic alarm device in her purse. It is used to remove security tags from merchandise — the kind that set off alarms, police said.
She is scheduled to appear in court in Brockton on Jan. 30.
On Tuesday, she was due to appear in Wrentham District Court, where she faces charges in connection with alleged thefts in Franklin.
She failed to appear because she was in jail, records show. She will be transported back to court for a Jan. 28 hearing, court records show.
She is due back in Plymouth Court on Jan. 23 for a hearing on the Redbrook thefts, and in Ayer District Court on Jan. 16, where she is scheduled to be arraigned on new charges out of Westford.
McDonough couldn’t be reached for comment, and it was unclear from court records who her lawyer is. Two lawyers named in court papers said they do not represent her.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.