APD: Maintenance worker at North Austin apartment complex stole money from woman's apartment

AUSTIN, Texas - A warrant has been issued for a man Austin police say burglarized a woman's apartment at a North Austin apartment complex where he worked as a maintenance worker.

Hector Alberto Pedroza, 46, has been charged with second-degree felony burglary of a residence.

Court paperwork says a woman at the Acacia Cliff Apartments called Austin police in November 2019 and told officers she was informed by a group text that a staff member of the complex had been accused of stealing money from residents. She said she had checked her belongings and found a sum of money missing. 

She told officers she had seen a maintenance worker looking through her front window when she was home who then knocked on her door and told her an upstairs resident had reported a water leak. She said the maintenance worker went to check the bathroom but left soon after. She said she spoke with her upstairs neighbor who said they never called about a leak, says court paperwork. She said after talking with her neighbor, she thought it was weird for the worker to come to her apartment.

The woman called police again in December saying she had video evidence. According to court paperwork, she had set up a hidden camera in her bedroom after she reported the money missing. She told officers at the time she was suspicious of the maintenance staff at the complex. She showed officers the video which showed a Hispanic man wearing a maintenance uniform inside her apartment at around 11 a.m. that morning. The man looking to be in his 30s, 5'10" and heavy-set with black hair.

The woman said she didn't find anything missing and that she recognized the man as a maintenance worker for the complex, according to court paperwork. She said there was no scheduled maintenance for that day and that the maintenance worker did not have permission to enter her home to take anything.

Officers obtained a copy of the video from the apartment complex manager and reviewed it and obtained the name of the worker suspected, which was Pedroza. In the video, officers saw Pedroza enter the woman's bedroom, go under her bed and rummage through a drawer before standing up and walking over to a desk to pick up her purse and rummage through that, says court paperwork.