A Boston man currently serving time for break-ins in Beacon Hill and Back Bay is facing new charges after investigators linked him to a series of Chinatown restaurant burglaries where bricks were used to smash through windows and doors five years ago.
James Schaff, 59, was charged Friday with two counts of breaking and entering in the nighttime and one count of larceny from a building in connection with two 2021 incidents, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office said Tuesday. Schaff also pleaded guilty that day to two counts of breaking and entering in the nighttime for separate incidents that occurred in 2023 in Beacon Hill.
Schaff is being held on $2,500 bail for each incident and was ordered to stay away from the businesses involved.
“James Schaff’s prior convictions make clear that he posed a threat to our merchants,” Hayden said in a statement. “Now we have additional offenses illustrating how much of a threat he really was.”
On Feb. 10, 2021, officers responded to Harrison Avenue in Chinatown after a cinder block was hurled through the front window of Asian Garden Restaurant, according to the statement. There, investigators collected blood from the shattered glass and sidewalk and determined a cash drawer containing $8 in bills and more than $100 in rolled coins was missing.
Five months later, on July 21, officers responded to a burglary at Irashai Sushi on Kneeland Street in Chinatown, less than a mile from Asian Garden. Police said they found the building’s glass front door shattered with a brick on the front steps, and the restaurant’s owner reported $1,100 missing from two drawers that appeared to have been rummaged through.
Officers collected DNA from a sweatshirt Schaff left behind, the same sweatshirt surveillance footage showed wrapped around his hand as he climbed through the shattered door, according to the statement. Investigators matched that DNA to Schaff in both Chinatown cases on Nov. 19, 2025.
Schaff, who has a history of offenses in multiple states, is currently serving a six-month sentence after pleading guilty in October 2025 to similar break-ins, officials said. On Friday, after pleading guilty to the two 2023 Beacon Hill burglaries, he was sentenced to an additional year with six months to serve and the balance suspended for one year on each charge.
The sentences will run consecutively to the term he is currently serving.
“The new charges are for offenses that occurred several years ago, but we’re committed to holding offenders accountable no matter when they occur,” Hayden said.
In 2024, Schaff appeared in court for string of break-ins at Charles Street businesses in Beacon Hill, including Tibet Emporium, Thieves Next Door, and Uwila Warrior, after officers found him holding a brick with “various pieces of jewelry” inside his jacket pocket, the Globe reported. Six months earlier, when he appeared in the same court on charges tied to two other Beacon Hill store break-ins, a judge ordered him to continue participating in an addiction treatment program and to stay away from Charles Street.
In 2023, during proceedings tied to the two May break-ins, Schaff’s attorney, Richard Noone, described him as homeless and told the court he “couldn’t even make a $250 cash bail,” the Globe reported. Those incidents followed earlier break-ins at two clothing stores, a homewares shop, and a storage facility in the same neighborhood.
Lila Hempel-Edgers can be reached at lila.hempeledgers@globe.com. Follow her on X @hempeledgers and on Instagram @lila_hempel_edgers.