Investigation results in clothing theft arrest

SALISBURY — A former Salisbury resident was arrested in Maine on March 24, following an investigation by Salisbury Resident State Trooper Mark Lauretano into complaints that she had more than $175,000 worth of clothing and antiques that belong to a former friend, Massoumeh Homayouni.

The complaint also says that the woman, Dianna Brochendorff, did not repay a $10,000 loan to Homayouni.

Homayouni has homes in New York City and Kent, but had relied on friends to store  some of her clothing and antiques.

In 2000, according to an affidavit filed at Bantam Superior Court, one friend who was storing the items had asked Homayouni to take them back.

At that point, she gave them to Brochendorff to store for her. Brochendorff told Homayouni, according to court documents, that she had plenty of room for them at her home in Salisbury.

Brochendorff is now listed as a resident of Somesville on Mount Desert in Maine but at that time she was renting a home in Lakeville at 24 Ethan Allen St., according to the affidavit.

Homayouni claims that in 2007 she began to repeatedly ask Brochendorff to return the clothes and antiques. Also at that time, in December 2007, she loaned Brochendorff $10,000.

“The cash was provided to  her in Dec. 7, 2007, for only a two-week period to cover an emergency need,â€� Homayouni said in her statement to the police.

Brochendorff told Homayouni she needed the money to pay Salisbury real estate agent Elyse Harney so she could “proceed forward in closing [a] real estate transaction.�

The two women continued to communicate over the years. In June 2008, Brochendorff even stayed at Homayouni’s home, according to Marjan Homayouni, the complainant’s sister (who also has some items that were being held by Brochendorff).

It was after that visit, in 2008, that the Homayouni sisters claim they realized that their possessions were not going to be returned to them.

 Brochendorff’s statement has not yet been made available. She was represented by attorney William Riiska when she appeared at Bantam Superior Court on March 24. She is expected to enter her plea at Litchfield Superior Court on April 6.

Riiska would not comment on the case.

In the affidavit, Brochendorff is quoted in e-mails as saying the clothing and other items were in storage in Torrington.  

Brochendorff was involved in a “legal-financial hurdle� and she indicated that she could not get access to any of the stored items until it was resolved.

However, in 2009 the clothes were released and delivered to Brochendorff in Maine. She claims in another e-mail that she sent Homayouni’s things back to her after they were released from storage.

Several of the items that Homayouni said were missing were found during a search of Brochendorff’s home in Maine. A pocketbook valued at approximately $1,350, which Homayouni said she owns, was on display at a consignment shop the Brochendorff was operatingin Maine.

The investigating trooper, Lauretano, also reported that invoices totaling more than $3,300 were found, apparently from the sale of items at the shop that Homayouni said belong to her.

Brochendorff has been charged with larceny in the first degree. She was released last week on a bond of $50,000.

In the court documents, the Mount Desert police in Maine say they “were familiar with Dianna Brochendorff regarding issues of bad checks.�

The District Court in Ellsworth, Maine, has a judgment against her from 2006 involving the Bar Harbor Trust bank. A source involved in the case told The Journal that Brochendorff overdrew her account at the bank by more than $16,000 and liquidated a $5,000 certificate of deposit twice.

Those funds have not yet been repaid to the bank, according to the source.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less