SLP Man Charged with Burglarizing Apartment

A St. Louis Park man has been charged with breaking into a neighbor’s apartment earlier this month, telling the victim that he was trying to find a man named "Michael."

Victor Gonzalez Cantero, 34, is charged with first-degree burglary, a felony with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine.

Cantero remains in the Hennepin County Jail on a $30,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled for June 14 in Hennepin County District Court.

According to the criminal complaint, signed by St. Louis Park Police Officer Jonathan Riegert, police were called to an apartment complex in the 8400 block of Minnetonka Boulevard on May 2 on a burglary report.

Officers met with the victim, who said a man she didn’t know had just climbed through an open window into her bedroom. She said she heard a noise, grabbed a broom and went into the bedroom to find the source of the noise.

She found Cantero in the bedroom and told him to get out, she said. Cantero said he was trying to find a man named "Michael," who he thought lived in the apartment; he climbed back out the window, and the victim called police, according to the complaint.

The victim provided a “very detailed” description of Cantero to police, who put together a photo lineup that included a picture of a man who resembled her description and who had been stopped in the area for suspicious activity, the complaint says.

The victim identified Cantero as the man who had been in her bedroom.

When police located and arrested Cantero at the same apartment complex, he had a number of syringes in “plain view” and another one in his pants pocket, according to the complaint. The syringes were sent in to be tested for drugs.

Police interviewed Cantero, who denied being in the victim’s apartment and said he didn’t know anyone named "Michael," according to Riegert’s account. When police reported what the victim had said, he said “that if it could be proven that he had in fact [gone] into the house, he had just gone there to meet someone,” the complaint says.

Cantero then changed his story, telling police that he had gone to the apartment to meet "Michael," but he couldn’t provide the man’s last name or any contact information other than that "Michael" was a friend of a man named "Abdul," according to the complaint.