Category Archives: Thief
Suspected sneaker thief slips up
This is no case for the fashion police.
Khalil Bailey wanted to buy a pair of limited-edition, pricey Nike sneakers. But when he couldn’t, he allegedly stole several pairs.
He might have gotten away with it too, if not for a series of surveillance tapes showing his actions, including one showing him wearing the shoes before they were available for sale.
The evidence landed Bailey, 27, who lists addresses in Newtown Township and Cheltenham, before Middletown District Judge John Kelly Jr. Tuesday. He was arraigned on burglary, theft and related charges and released on $20,000 unsecured bail.
Police say Bailey broke into Foot Locker in the Oxford Valley Mall on Dec. 16 and stole the sneakers after he missed out on a chance to buy one of only 14 pairs of Air Jordan 11 Retro sneakers in stock. Earlier that day, the store had given away tickets that allowed the holders to buy a pair of the nearly $200 sneakers available starting Dec. 21, Middletown Detective Pat Nicastro said.
The Nike retro sneaker line is so popular that people waited overnight at the mall for the chance to get a ticket to buy a pair, the detective said. By early afternoon, more than 25 people were in line, so Foot Locker management decided to hand out the tickets earlier than the advertised 5 p.m. time, Nicastro said.
After the tickets were dispersed, Bailey — a seasonal loss prevention employee at a Sears store in the Middletown mall — allegedly got into an argument with a Foot Locker employee over the tickets being given out early. Bailey was not among the people waiting in line, Nicastro said.
The next morning, a store manager discovered four of the 14 pairs of the Air Jordan 11s were missing from the stockroom, but she couldn’t find any sign of forced entry. That is until about 10 days later, when she discovered pry marks on the back door, Nicastro said.
When the manager reviewed the store’s surveillance video, she found footage of a male breaking into the stockroom after hours on Dec. 16. Once inside, the suspect allegedly took several boxes of the Air Jordan 11 and a T-shirt — together valued at $1,186 — and hid the items in two black trash bags he had in his back pocket before leaving the store.
Another Foot Locker employee who reviewed the surveillance video recognized the suspect as the same man who had an argument about the tickets on Dec. 16, Nicastro said.
Another employee who saw the video recognized Bailey as a guy who worked at the nearby Sears, police said.
But instead of keeping the shoes out of sight, the suspect, Nicastro said, was captured on video inside the Foot Locker wearing the shoes — days before they were available for sale.
“The entire thing was caught on video,” Nicastro said. “A dopey criminal.”
Man steals the underwear they told him he’d need ……. in jail
A man who stole two pairs of underwear after being told he would need clean skivvies to serve weekends in jail may need even more drawers — he’s been sentenced to even more time in jail.
Alvin Rogers, 33, of Painter, was sentenced to five years with two years, six months suspended for third-offense shoplifting. Substitute Circuit Judge Glen A. Tyler, presiding in Northampton Circuit Court, noted that Rogers had already paid the $17.85 in restitution.
Defense attorney Paul Watson told the court late last year that a person checking in for weekends in the Accomack County Jail is required to bring two sets of underwear.
“And that is exactly what he took,” said Watson.
Rogers was observed by a Exmore Dollar General store clerk and seen on surveillance video placing two packages of underwear into his jacket and leaving the store without paying for them.
When he was stopped, Rogers said he took the items so he would meet requirements when he began serving weekend jail time.
Rogers’ lengthy, larcenous history is what caused the hefty sentence for the theft of goods whose value was under $20.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Bruce Jones described Rogers as, “a very pleasant man who was always extremely cooperative,” but said that he has been incarcerated 11 times in his 34 years.
Many of those convictions were for shoplifting, which becomes a felony after the third conviction, no matter the value of the stolen items.
At Rogers’ last court appearance, Jones told a story of an earlier crime committed by the defendant. He said Rogers stole a large jar of change from a house and that police investigating the crime, “literally followed the money.”
Jones said police found coins dropped along the way that led them to the perpetrator of the crime.
“It was like Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs, ” he said.
The pastor of the church Rogers attends spoke on behalf of the defendant, saying he was very active in and did a lot of work at his church, including remodeling and cooking. He said Rogers was trying to turn his life around.
“Unfortunately, I have seen him here in this courtroom almost as often as the pastor has seen him in his church,” said Tyler.
Burglar improvises after he forgets mask ….. with a bucket
Slidell police say a burglar forgot an important element of his disguise as he planned a night of crime.
Police say 23 year-old Richard Boudreaux dressed all in camouflage, wore gloves and packed his tools when he showed up to burglarize his former employer, Kenney’s Seafood.
But, they say he apparently forgot his mask. They say Boudreaux knew the business had surveillance cameras so he improvised and covered his head with a bucket as he searched the business for money.
The cameras still managed to catch glimpses of his face though, and that’s what allowed police to identify him as the culprit.
Investigators say he also tried to break into Jerry’s Buy and Sell Pawn Shop with no luck.
Police arrested Boudreaux at his home and booked him with two counts of simple burglary.
Man’s luck runs out when thieves steal his winnings
For a few hours, David Hayes was $35,800 richer.
A five-hour blackjack streak that went into the early hours of Sunday, Oct. 21, at Hollywood Casino Columbus ended with the big payout for Hayes.
But luck soon turned to loss for the 29-year-old self-employed jewelry maker.
Hayes took his winnings in cash — 358 $100 bills. He said he didn’t know you could get a check until after the cashier had stapled the brick of money in a manila envelope.
After a long, paranoid drive back to his Far North Side home, he said he put the money on his nightstand and planned to deposit it first thing on Monday morning.
“It was the answer to everyone’s debt around me,” he said. “I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep, thinking of things I was going to be able to do with the money.”
But hours later, three men were in his bedroom, holding a gun to his head and demanding the money.
“It was a year’s salary, all in one night,” he said.
Hayes said he thought he did everything right to stay safe. He was escorted to the cashier to get his payout, and he was escorted to his car. He didn’t think he was followed. Hayes thinks that someone in line nearby at the casino saw his address written down when he cashed out.
Detective Thomas Clark of the Columbus police robbery squad said that’s likely what happened. Police have charged three men with aggravated robbery and related crimes in the case.
One of them, Ronald Jones, was at the West Side casino on the night of Hayes’ big win.
Two men are in custody: Jones, 26, of 107 N. Roys Ave. on the West Side, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with aggravated robbery. Ryan Bundy, 20, of the same address, was arrested in October and is charged with aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary with a weapons specification. A third man, Wendell Watkins Sr., 30, is charged with aggravated robbery. He is still at large.
The casino opened on Oct. 8, and Clark said he hasn’t heard of any similar robberies. Casino cashiers encourage patrons to take their winnings in a check, especially if the total is more than $1,200. That’s the minimum amount the casino must report to the Internal Revenue Service.
Winners also can return later to take their money. But cashiers have to deliver the winnings in cash if the gambler requests it, no matter how big the amount.
In Hayes’ case, “clearly, that is a lot of cash, and we think it’s more convenient and better for patrons to take a check rather than take that amount of cash,” said Bob Tenenbaum, a casino spokesman. Since the theft, Hayes, who plays blackjack regularly, has been back to the casino about a dozen times, he said, and has made back what he lost.
“I look at it as, I lost $1,000, which is what I played with,” he said. “I kept my life, and I got a manila envelope.”
He plans to frame that keepsake.
If you buy an Ipad in a parking lot don’t be surprised if your $200 iPad turns out to be a mirror
Not many high end electronics are sold in gas station parking lots, so maybe Jalonta Freeman should have been a bit more suspicious when she was offered a brand new iPad for $200.
But Freeman took a chance and ending up shelling out big bucks for what turned out to be just a mirror.
‘I just started cussing,’ she told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. ‘I was upset. Anybody would be upset if you found out you just got scammed, you know what I’m saying? You just lost $200.’
Ripped off: Jalonta Freeman thought she got a great deal for an iPad, but it was actually a terrible deal for a mirror
Freeman, who lives in Arlington, said she was offered the too-good-to-be-true deal by a stranger who pulled up beside her at a gas station.
‘He was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got some iPads and stuff, and I’ve got some laptops if you all are interested in buying,’ she said.
The con man told her it was a brand new iPad worth $800 but he’d let it go for just $200.
An iPad 2 model with cellular network connection starts at $529.
Freeman thought it was a great chance to get an early Christmas present at a price that would shame Black Friday sales.
As soon as the money changed hands, the salesman sped off.
Mirror: This mirror in iPad packaging cost $200
Freeman’s sister opened the package to discover it was only a mirror roughly the size of the expensive tablet.
‘If you turn it on the back, it actually looks like an Apple iPad,’ Freeman said. ‘And when you turn it to the front, it has the prices and stuff.’
The anonymous salesman even took the time to put an Apple sticker on it.
‘That’s so messed up,’ Freeman said. ‘That’s so wrong. I would never do anybody like that. Get a job.’
At least the lesson was priceless.
‘Don’t buy nothing on the streets from nobody,’ she said.
Drunk man walks into a home, fixes himself dinner, and makes off with a box of Klondike bars as couple sleeps on the couch
What would YOU do for Klondike bar?
If you’re one Pennsylvania man, you’d get drunk and break into a home.
According to Scranton Police, Steven Johnson, 24, broke into a home early Thursday morning and helped himself to an extravagant dinner of steak, clams, shrimp, and crab legs and washed it down with coconut rum and vanilla vodka before escaping with a box of Klondike bars.
Feast: Steven Johnson, 24, had everything in place for a late-night surf and turf snack and a nightcap early Thursday morning, police said
He might have made a clean getaway if he hadn’t startled the owners who were sleeping on the couch when Johnson strolled in and tucked into the a surf-and-turf spread, reports the Times-Tribune.
The owner woke up as Mr Johnson, who had prepared himself a to-go bag that included more food, booze and a pack of cigarettes, and watched him walk out of his kitchen and out the front door, taking with him a box of Klondike bars for desert.
Once he had left, the owner called the police and the man was quickly apprehended.
The alleged thief was caught red-handed with a bag of food: a bushel of clams, some crab legs, shrimp – most of which was already eaten – and an opened box of Reese’s Klondike bars.
The food, alcohol and pack of Camel cigarettes in Mr Johnson’s pocket accounted for all of the items missing from the home.
Just Deserts: Police say Johnson left the burgled home with a bag of food, including a box of Klondike bars
Mr Johnson also had a bag containing two power drills, a nail gun and screws on him that did not come from the home, according to the complaint.
Police charged Mr Johnson with one count each of burglary, criminal trespass and public drunkenness.
He was sent to Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $10,000 bail, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
“Nude woman arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure.”
Police in Washington state said a nude woman took a coat from a Big Lots store, but dropped it while she was fleeing.
Lacey police said the unidentified woman, believed to be in her early 30s, took off her clothes before entering the store Tuesday and took a coat from the store that she dropped while fleeing from employees, The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune reported Wednesday.
Sgt. Adam Seig said the woman was completely nude and running in and out of traffic in the parking lot when she was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure just after 3 p.m.
Seig said the woman seemed disoriented.
Protip: Don’t rob a bank where even the bank president is armed
Maybe the bank robber couldn’t see very well through the holes in his mask — the face of Chucky from the “Child’s Play” horror movies — as he walked into Peoples Bank & Trust Tuesday afternoon.
After all, it says right on the door that concealed weapons are allowed in the bank. They’re practically encouraged by the sign: “Management recognizes the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as an unalienable right of all citizens.”
So when the robber walked out of the bank a short time later with a red bank bag full of cash, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that bank president David W. Thompson followed him out to the parking lot. Thompson watched the masked robber get in a Ford pickup parked in a handicapped spot up front, then pulled his Colt .380 handgun and pointed it at the man.
“Sir, get out of the truck,” Thompson, 58, recalled demanding. “You’re not going anywhere.”
And when the man put his hand in his jacket pocket, as if he had a weapon, Thompson scolded him again.
“You don’t want to go there,” Thompson said. “This will end badly.”
Fortunately the robber listened. It turned out the man had no weapon of his own. Thompson and another bank official who also carries his own weapon pulled the man from the truck and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
“I didn’t have time to get scared,” said Thompson, a life member of the National Rifle Association who supports concealed-carry laws. “I was excited. Your adrenaline pumps. He robbed a bank, he menaced my employees, and I don’t allow that.”
‘A gutsy call’
On Wednesday morning, authorities charged Donald Ray Lee, 58, of Lincoln County, with first-degree robbery in the bank heist. He was being held Wednesday in lieu of $50,000 cash-only bail.
Nabbing Lee made Thompson, who was born and reared in Lincoln County, the talk of the town. His office line rang nearly nonstop after news spread Wednesday morning. Co-workers thanked him. A customer who was vacationing in Singapore heard about it on the news and chimed in with congratulations. The local priest stopped by the bank to tell Thompson he did a good job.
At one point, Thompson opened an envelope marked inter-office mail. He laughed when he saw what an employee had put inside as a joke: a .38-caliber bullet and a message that it was a “donation to the cause.” Thompson put it in his drawer with the rest of his ammunition.
As Thompson sat behind his desk at the bank Wednesday and fielded questions from a reporter, one of his longtime friends and customers, Billy D. Phillips, stood in the doorway and struck a pose reminiscent of Dirty Harry. Phillips pointed his finger as if it were a gun and pulled the imaginary trigger. He smiled broadly and said he was proud of Thompson, who has been with the family-operated bank 36 years.
“That’s David,” said Phillips, 76. “I’ve known him his whole life. He’s quite a guy.”
Jerry Sage, executive director of the Kansas City-based Missouri Independent Banking Association, said there was no protocol for bankers regarding using a firearm, as Thompson did on Tuesday. Sage’s group represents more than 200 community banks throughout the state of Missouri, including Thompson’s bank. Thompson is past president of the association.
“We stress in our safety training that safety is the most important thing,” Sage said. “He took it outside the bank so no one was in jeopardy. If he pulls a gun and he has a permit, that would certainly be his call.
And, Sage added: “It was a gutsy call.”
Troy Police Chief Jeff Taylor also commended Thompson.
“He’s a very level-headed man,” the chief added. “It worked out really well.”
But while he doesn’t second-guess Thompson’s actions, Taylor said he generally advises that people don’t take matters into their own hands like that.
“In general, I would suggest they lock that door, get a good description of the robber and call police immediately,” Taylor said.
But that just wasn’t Thompson’s instinct during the robbery.
No hesitation
Lee walked into the bank about 2:40 p.m., according to police, a few minutes before the lobby was to close for the day. There were about 60 employees in the three-story building and a few customers in the bank, Thompson said.
He brushed past two bank employees who told him to take off the Halloween mask, Thompson said. The teller also told him he had to remove the mask, but according to Thompson, Lee said, “No, you gotta give me all your money.”
The tellers then saw the masked man put his hand in his coat pocket, indicating he had a gun.
Thompson credits his tellers for their handling of the situation.
“They did exactly what they were supposed to do,” he said. “They stayed calm and nobody caused a stink.”
Thompson, meanwhile, was in his office talking with a salesman about advertising when his receptionist buzzed him with an emergency. Thompson said he looked out his office door into the bank lobby and saw that his tellers looked fearful. And he saw a man wearing a heavy jacket and a ghoulish Halloween mask calmly walk away from the tellers, carrying one of the bank’s red money bags.
He didn’t hesitate. He followed the man outside and locked the bank door behind him to keep his employees safe.
Thompson said he never worried he’d be hurt in a confrontation with the robber. Not only was Thompson armed, but he’s a black belt. The robber “was frail enough and slow-moving enough that I’d already ascertained I could physically handle him,” he said.
After drawing down on the robber and getting backup from the other bank worker, Thompson pulled the man from the truck and waited for police.
Police arrived quickly, forced the man to the ground and pulled the mask off his face, Thompson said. The officers opened the man’s wallet, and Thompson saw a debit card for Peoples Bank.
“That’s when I realized he was one of our customers,” Thompson said.
Thompson didn’t recognize the man, but one of his tellers later said she did. Turns out Lee had opened an account with the bank in April, Thompson said.
He had $4,779 in the bank bag, according to court documents. Lee told police he’d gone to the bank only to trick or treat.
Lee lives in the first block of Ruby Drive, near Cuivre River State Park, with his daughter and grandchildren. A neighbor, Hazel Schone, said Lee came from Oklahoma about a year ago to live with his family.
Schone said she thought that Lee might be suffering from dementia and that his relatives were talking about getting him tested for Alzheimer’s disease.
“He’d be nice one minute and mean the next,” Schone said. “Here lately, he had changed and was being nicer. He’d wave ‘Hi,’ I’d wave ‘Hi.’”
The Chucky Halloween mask, she said, belonged to Lee’s granddaughter,
Man crawls across movie theater floors to steal nearly $70,000/week. Almost worth it
A man who may have stolen as much as $70,000 a week by slithering beneath theater seats while movies were playing and lifting credit cards from women’s’ pocketbooks was convicted Monday of fraud and identity theft crimes.
Anthony Johnson, 49, and a string of accomplices used the stolen cards to collect thousands of dollars in cash advances from Connecticut’s gambling casinos and to make tens of thousands of dollars more in retail purchases in Connecticut and elsewhere, authorities said.
On a “good” weekend, Johnson collected $50,000 to $70,000 from the scheme, one of his accomplices testified last week at his trial at U.S. District Court in Hartford. He had to settle for $30,000 or $40,000 on a bad weekend, the accomplice said.
The accomplice, who agreed to cooperate with authorities, said Johnson, of Philadelphia, typically worked with women accomplices. They bought tickets to motion pictures likely to be popular with female audiences and chose seats from which they could watch how women in the audience stored their pocketbooks.
“Once the movie started, Johnson crawled on the floor, removed credit cards from the stored purses, and returned the wallet to the purses,” according to an FBI affidavit. “Johnson crawled in this manner around the theater until he was done…”
Afterward, Johnson used counterfeiting equipment to manufacture driver’s licenses bearing the photograph of his current accomplice and the identifying information of the owner of the stolen credit cards.
Armed with phony identification, Johnson and his accomplices went on shopping sprees.
With three cards stolen from the pocketbook of a woman watching a feature at the Bow-Tie Cinema in Greenwich on Dec. 27, 2008, Johnson and his accomplice ran up $54,000 in charges. A variety of retailers and the Foxwoods Casino turned down another $40,000 in charges.
The FBI credited a big break in the case to dogged work by a Greenwich police detective who took the complaint from the Greenwich theater and refused to drop it in spite of setbacks. The detective collected evidence of crimes fitting the same pattern elsewhere in New England and the Northeast.
The detective put together profiles of Johnson and his various accomplices, according to information provided by the FBI.
Johnson was tried and convicted of crimes associated with thefts from the Bow-Tie Cinema in Greenwich, the Gallery Cinemas in Colchester and at Fairfield Cinemas in Fairfield.
During a theft from the Colchester theater on Aug. 15, 2010, one of the stolen credit cards was used at a gas station 52 minutes into a 90-minute feature. Later in the day, the card was used to obtain $4,000 in cash advances and an $863 item from a Coach store at the Mohegan Sun casino.
The FBI said Johnson has been creeping over theater floors since at least 2007, when he was released from prison in a case involving the theft of a diamond in the Philadelphia area.
A jury convicted Johnson Monday of seven counts of unauthorized use of an access device, such as a credit or debit card, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. The access device convictions carry maximum 10-year sentences and the identity theft charges carry additional two-year sentences.
Judge Vanessa L. Bryant has scheduled sentencing for Jan. 14.
Two of Johnson’s accomplices, Lashirelle Bryant and Jamie McGowan, each pleaded guilty in June to one count of unauthorized use of an access device and one count of aggravated identity theft. They have yet to be sentenced.
If you burglarize a house, don’t celebrate by standing around in the backyard drinking beer
A Clarksville man has been charged with burglary after the victim found him in the backyard drinking beer.
According to a press release issued by Clarksville Police spokesman Officer Jim Knoll, on Oct. 19, around 10:15 a.m., the victim returned to his home on Dalewood Drive and discovered someone had entered the residence. He also discovered several items had been taken.
He found Kylan Brock, a man he knew but had not authorized to enter his home, standing in the backyard with a beer in one hand and another beer in his back pocket, the release said. The victim told police that when he contronted Brock about his presence, Brock said he had been inside the home and took the beer from the refrigerator.
The police were called, but Brock fled on foot, the release said.
Officer Steve Holman located Brock walking in the area of 107 Bluegrass Road. Property taken from the Dalewood Drive home was found in his possession, the release said, and additionally, Brock also left his ID at the home.
According to the release, Brock was also a suspect in a December 2011 burglary at New Providence United Methodist Church, 1317 Fort Campbell Blvd. In that incident, Knoll said money was stolen and several windows were broken throughout the church.
While processing that crime scene, investigators found a discarded rubber glove in an office near a floor safe. The glove was collected and sent for DNA analysis, which matched it to Brock, Knoll said.
According the the release, Detective Ramon Carroll interviewed Brock, who admitted to entering the church and donning a pair of rubber gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. While in the church, he said he cut his hand on a broken window and discarded the glove, the release said.
Brock, 27, who gave a Riley Road address, was booked into Montgomery County Jail and charged with burglary and aggravated burglary. His bond was set at $35,000. Knoll said Brock had a previous criminal history involving aggravated burglary.
