WESTERLO — A Westerlo woman agreed May 4 to plead guilty in federal court to charges of trafficking stolen goods.

Noreen Pettalino, 36, of 201 Albany Hill Road, Westerlo, has admitted to conspiring with a truck driver for nearly a year to sell stolen Eddie Bauer merchandise over the Internet auction site, eBay, according to documents from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Pettalino is charged with the transportation of stolen goods, which carries a jail sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000. She has also agreed to pay restitution to Eddie Bauer, Inc., and cooperate in further investigation of the crimes.

According to her plea, Pettalino met a driver for Eddie Bauer in May of 2002. Among other places, he made deliveries to the Eddie Bauer store on Central Avenue in Colonie. The driver told Pettalino that he regularly stole boxes of merchandise from the store after he dropped them off and they were recorded in the inventory, but before the store put them away, the plea says.

Pettalino told the driver that she was willing to buy the stolen merchandise and sell it on eBay, and so she did, for $50 per box, much less than the actual value of the merchandise, the plea says. According to the plea, Pettalino sold stolen Eddie Bauer merchandise over eBay for the next year, sending the merchandise to auction bidders, in the United States and Canada, through the mail.

The total value of the stolen goods Pettalino sold was $77,761.48 retail, and $19,919.41 wholesale, the plea says.

According to Thomas Spina Jr., the assistant federal prosecutor who prosecuted the case, Eddie Bauer was tipped off by an eBay user that someone was selling new store merchandise at a discounted cost. Eddie Bauer then bought some of the merchandise, Spina said, and, upon confirming it was stolen, turned over the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which tracked it to Pettalino’s home computer through her IP address—a series of numbers unique to each computer logged onto the Internet.

FBI agents went to Pettalino’s home with a search warrant on Aug. 21, 2003, the court documents say, and found: $9,225.12 worth of stolen Eddie Bauer merchandise, the computer used to sell the merchandise, and a map of North America with marks on the states and countries to which the merchandise had been mailed, the court documents say.

On that same day, the documents say, Pettalino was inter-viewed by the FBI, and admitted to her participation in the scheme.

Using information from Pettalino, Spina said, the Colonie Police were able to catch the driver, Lionel Young, on a surveillance camera stealing from the store. Young was arrested and now faces charges in Albany County court.

EBay, which began operation in 1995, is an Internet auction site used by over 147 million people worldwide. According to Spina, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has seen an increase in Internet scams and stolen goods sold over the Internet as eBay use has in-creased.

Hani Durzy, a spokesperson for eBay, told The Enterprise that eBay forbids the sale of anything illegal on its site.

"If it’s illegal to sell off of eBay, you can’t do it on eBay," Durzy said.

Although the company monitors its site for other policy violations, such as the sale of guns, eBay has no way of knowing if merchandise is stolen. EBay connects sellers to buyers, it does not directly handle any merchandise.

"We’re not asking them to show us a receipt," Durzy said.

Instead, eBay employs a Fraud Investigation Team, which includes a former U.S. prosecutor and a former member of Scotland Yard, to work with law enforcement agencies, encouraging them to check the site when trying to recover stolen property.

Though eBay is often used by thieves, Durzy said, "Usually, you read about them in a the con-text of them getting busted."

All eBay auctioneers have to register with a name, address, e-mail address, and phone number, Durzy said, which makes it easy to track down criminals.