CalArts Student, 21, Held in Burglary Spree

A CalArts student wanted on charges of breaking into a safe in Michigan was arrested in his dormitory room on the Valencia campus by investigators who also found property from five Simi Valley burglaries, authorities said Friday.

Stuart Wesley Hicks, 21, was arrested Thursday night and was being held without bail because of a warrant charging him with safe breaking and embezzlement in Charlotte, Mich., officials said.

Hicks was arrested by members of a Sheriff’s Department anti-burglary team based in the Santa Clarita Valley. The deputies located Hicks with information from Simi Valley police, who were investigating a series of commercial burglaries.

Simi Valley Police Detective Christopher Ward said Hicks is believed to have been involved in numerous burglaries in Los Angeles and Simi Valley. He said he will ask the Ventura County district attorney to file five burglary charges against Hicks stemming from break-ins at four restaurants and one motel in which about $9,000 in cash and property were taken. Property from those burglaries was found in Hicks’ dorm room, Ward said.

Ward said Hicks enrolled at the school this year, but it was unknown what he was studying because school officials declined to release information about him.

He was identified as a burglary suspect last week when Simi Valley police arrested 29-year-old Tambra Lipps as she was attempting to break into the Oak Pit Restaurant in the 3200 block of Los Angeles Avenue, Ward said.

Lipps told police she had been taught how to break into businesses by Hicks, whom she had met at a Simi Valley boarding house, Ward said. She allegedly told police that Hicks was attending college in Valencia.