OCPD's Most Wanted Convicted

SNOW HILL - A Berlin man, deemed at a time as one of the Ocean City Police Department's 'most wanted' for a string of burglaries in a resort trailer park in March 2008, appeared in Worcester County Circuit Court to face 32 separate charges and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary and was sentenced to five years in jail, most of which was suspended in favor of probation.

Last December, Ocean City police were informed a suspect on its most wanted list had been arrested in Oakland Park, Fla. Stavros 'Steve' Kominos, 24, originally from Berlin, had been on the OCPD's most wanted list since March 2008 when he was connected, along with another man, to a string of burglaries carried out at the Isle of Wight trailer park in the resort in the area of 24^th Street.

On March 4, 2008, OCPD officers responded to the trailer park in reference to a break-in. Initially, the officers believed they were responding to a single burglary, but a thorough search of the entire trailer park revealed an additional 14 trailers had been burglarized. Numerous items were removed from the burglarized residences including televisions, DVD players and a vacuum.

Evidence was gathered at the scene by the OCPD's Forensic Services unit and investigators were able to connect the crimes to a pair of individuals including Kominos and Adam Woodson Queen, 21, of Bethel Park, Pa. Queen was arrested a short time later, but Kominos fled to Florida the next day and had been wanted by Ocean City Police ever since until he was taken into custody in Oakland Park last December.

Kominos was extradited to Worcester County a few weeks later in January and was charged with a total of 32 charges including 12 counts of first-degree burglary and 11 counts of felony malicious destruction of property. This week, Kominos appeared in Circuit Court to face those charges and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary and was sentenced to five years in jail. However, all but four months and 15 days of the sentence was later suspended. The other 31 charges against him were not prosecuted.

While Kominos was able to successfully allude police and flee to Florida for several months, Queen was picked up by resort police shortly after being identified as a suspect. He went to trial for his role in the trailer park burglaries in October and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to the 217 days he spent in jail while awaiting trial.