More charges filed in Zabriskie burglary

Six people have been charged with possessing some of the property stolen from the house of Olympic bicyclist and Salt Lake resident David Zabriskie.

Valerie Marie Banyai, 39, Christopher A. Kennedy, 45, Diego Victor Briseno, 41, and Paul D. Halladay, 49, have all been charged with two counts of theft by receiving stolen property. Jamie L. Soter, 46, and Zachery Allen Ramey, 20, were charged with one count of the same crime.

Police said Zabriskie's home was burglarized while he was away at a race. In all, about $250,000 in property was taken, according to police.

After the burglary, a confidential informant told police that most of the stolen items from the Zabriskie home were with a man named "J," who was later identified as Leopold Jay Howard, the charges state. Howard was charged in early March with two counts of burglary and four counts of theft, and police believe he was the main person responsible for the burglary.

The informant told police that Banyai, who is Howard's ex-wife, had picked some of the property up, according to the charges. Police executed a search warrant on Banyai's residence, where Kennedy was located at the time, and they found a Trek carbon fiber bicycle and Marvel figurines, valued together at $3,131.96, the charges state.

Banyai told police that "she knew the property was stolen, that (Howard) had been trading it for drugs and that he had brought it to her saying 'the heat is on' after news broke about the Zabriskie burglary," the court documents state.

Banyai told police another man, whom police later identified as Briseno, had also taken some of the stolen property, prosecutors say.

While executing a search warrant at Briseno's residence, police said they did not find any property belonging to Zabriskie but did find some property from another robbery they were investigating. While interviewing Briseno, he admitted to police that some of Zabriskie's stolen property had been in his home, the charges state. He allegedly said that one of the items was a big screen TV brought over by the brother of Ramey, which he said he sold for $50.

While executing a search warrant at Ramey's residence, officers located a pair of Nike U.S. Postal Service biking team shoes valued at more than $1,000, the charges said.