How to extract OverlayItem from Overlay?

I need to check if the data of a newly created OverlayItem is already existing on the list of OverlayItems already displayed on the map. I made a code to check if the data of the OverlayItem is already existing but I'm encountering an error on it. How can I extract an OverlayItem from an Overlay?

My current code is like this:

//where mapOverlays = mapView.getOverlays() and overlayItem is the newly created overlayItem
public boolean isExisting(List<Overlays> mapOverlays, OverlayItem overlayItem)
{
    ItemizedOverlay overlay;
    OverlayItem itemToCompare;

    for(int i = 0; i < mapOverlays.size(); i++)
    {
        overlay = (ItemizedOverlay)mapOverlays; //I am getting an error here: java.util.Collections$SynchronizedRandomAccessList (from e.getMessage()). The stack trace does not contain any specific exception but only the trace of the error pointing to this line.
        existingOverlayItem = overlay.getItem(i);

        if(itemToCompare.getPoint().equals(overlayItem.getPoint())
            && itemToCompare.getSnippet().equals(overlayItem.getSnippet())
            && itemToCompare.getTitle().equals(overlayItem.getTitle()))
            return true; //if all data are the same
    }

    return false;
}

Thanks all for answering my question. I found out that my problem happens because I'm casting mapOverlays to a wrong class.

Also, instead of extracting OverlayItem from mapOverlays (which I can't find out how), I am just making the validation inside addOverlay(OverlayItem overlayItem). I can't do this before because I am always reinitializing the value of my itemizedOverlay. As such, I can't compare the newly added OverlayItem to the old ones because itemizedOverlay does not hold the old values anymore. What I did is instead of always reinitializing itemizedOverlay, I am just always clearing mapOverlays which equals to mapView.getOverlays().clear().