Gear Stolen, Gear Found, Gear Returned

[NorseHorse]

Not to mentioned a house raided and a theif arrested!

I wanted to start a "stolen gear" thread with a happy ending, and let you all in on the story. Back in March, some of you may recall that I posted a thread alerting the forum that I had a significant amount of equipment stolen out of my car in my driveway (anywhere between $10k-$20k depending on how you want to do the math) in Springfield. stike

Among the items I had stolen were a rare Schoeps stereo mic, three Edirol R44 recorders, a Sontronics Apollo, a Great River MP-2M, a TL-Audio Tubetracker M3 mixer, two AT4050s, and my special collection of Nady SP5s! Plus some other rack gear + camera + video camera, etc.

The day the items were stolen, I actually ran a show (after calling the Fairfax County Police and insurance of course). Between the items the theif left and items I had down in Williamsburg, I was able to run an a cappella concert. Only took about 300 miles of driving to get everything, but I managed!

The day after the theft, I opened up my email to find a note from eBay: "eBay Saved Search: TL Audio Mixer". I took a look at the listing - these things don't pop up very often on eBay... It was from Manassas, not too far from me... And it was posted the same morning my things were stolen... And when I opened their Other Items, there was a listing for a Sabine Graphi-Q... These pop up even less often than Tubetrackers... and I'm probably the only person in the world to own both! I immediately called the police again!

To summarize a very stressful three/four weeks... more of my items popped up on eBay. The seller wouldn't meet in person. We found more of my items on Amazon. Police don't work on weekends. My Tubetracker was shipped to NY. The buyer of the Tubetracker refused to respond to the Fairfax County Police, and so they had to send the local police to his house to check the serial number. The serial number was one digit off from my records! We were able to track down the hand-written inspection certificate, and it turns out the person who examined it writes his sixes funny. Police were sluggish in sending a subpoena to eBay/PayPal. Other items appear on eBay and Amazon which appear to be stolen. My Graphic-Q was shipped to Thailand, but intercepted and returned to police. One of my Edirol R44s was sold and shipped to Saudi Arabia. The other two were sold on Amazon. Amazon doesn't respond to police subpoenas. PayPal and eBay finally get the police the home address tied to the seller. They raid the house and find over 100 stolen items, some of which were mine and some of which were from thefts in two other counties! The theif was a 19-year old senior in high school. He wasn't there when the raided the house, so they left a note with his parents telling him to turn himself in if he knew what was good for him.

It took another week before I was able to pick up my equipment from the Evidence Room. Check it out:

[musical5]

Thats great news!!

[Space Station]

So what happened to the scum?

[NorseHorse]

About 2/3rds of everything that had been stolen was returned, including everything that couldn't be replaced. (I assume those would have been the most difficult to sell too, since there isn't much/any information out there on them.)

I would like to send a special thanks out to:

- The Fairfax County Police.
- My friend and hostess / detective.
- USAA Insurance. They were extremely helpful in helping me schedule a window replacement for my car. And even better, they agreed to cover everything that wasn't recovered under my Renters Insurance policy. thumbsupthumbsup My gear is my savings right now, so this means so much to me.
- All the engineers who offered to lend me things if I needed them.

The Tubetracker M3 is still gone. The buyer is claiming it's broken and is refusing to ship it back.

Do you know anyone who purchased an Edirol R44 in March and received an Oade Brothers Modded Edirol R44 as a suprise? If so, let me know. The serial numbers are ZX73147, ZX42424, and ZY43396.

[mmahan40]

Thats awesome man congrats!!

I'm sure that was quite the ordeal to go through!

[NorseHorse]

The theif is facing charges in three counties (Prince William, Fairfax, and Loudoun), mainly for car break-ins like mine. Most of the stolen items are GPSs, cameras, and credit cards.

It's a real shame that this kid felt the need to do stuff like this. He's pretty well off, has his own car which his parents got him, and I'm gonna venture a guess and say his parents are hard workers. (They are legal aliens.) In court on Wednesday, he pleaded guilty on three different charges (one of which was for my stuff). He will likely serve jail-time in Virginia and then get deported. Each charge carried a minimum 1 year sentence and maximum 20 years. But they aren't required to follow it, so who knows exactly what'll happen. (There's a guy in the neighborhood who burned down a 250k house for fun and only got a year in jail... )

Since the theft, I have:

Increased the coverage on my Renters Insurance.
Purchased replacement recorders. (Zoom R16s + Edirol R44)
Finally tracked down a company that will insure my gear everywhere. (It took a while.)

Next on my list:

Get a car alarm.
Suggestions????

[BOWIE]

Great to hear! I remember when you first posted about the theft. There were several thefts posted around that time and that was the thread that finally convinced me to buy a few large safes for my gear. Thanks for the follow-up!

[api2500]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

The theif is facing charges in three counties (Prince William, Fairfax, and Loudoun), mainly for car break-ins like mine. Most of the stolen items are GPSs, cameras, and credit cards.

It's a real shame that this kid felt the need to do stuff like this. He's pretty well off, has his own car which his parents got him, and I'm gonna venture a guess and say his parents are hard workers. (They are legal aliens.) In court on Wednesday, he pleaded guilty on three different charges (one of which was for my stuff). He will likely serve jail-time in Virginia and then get deported. Each charge carried a minimum 1 year sentence and maximum 20 years. But they aren't required to follow it, so who knows exactly what'll happen. (There's a guy in the neighborhood who burned down a 250k house for fun and only got a year in jail... )

Since the theft, I have:

Increased the coverage on my Renters Insurance.
Purchased replacement recorders. (Zoom R16s + Edirol R44)
Finally tracked down a company that will insure my gear everywhere. (It took a while.)
Purchased a replacement Tubetracker M3! (Just this week!)

Next on my list:

Get a car alarm.
Suggestions????

CONGRATULATIONS BTW!!!

I think either car alarm, or an very big dog. I'd kill if someone tried robbing me of my MBP, never mind all of that!!!

When the police are helpful, they really really sink it. I jst feel sorry for that kid's parents...

[bitman]

Suggestions?

Don't leave stuff in your car.

I learned that after coming in late after a gig and we were to lazy to unload my truck with topper of a bass cab, qsc amp and other goodies.

The next morning I want out to find glass where my truck was.

It was a nothin truck. Must have been flollowed home.

[mobius.media]

Congrats dude. Great to see you were able to track it all like that. I'm impressed you were able to get such a positive resolution.

But I have to say, if you're leaving your valuables in your car overnight you're kind of setting yourself up for it. There are always a**holes like that snooping around windows, so like bitman suggests...

[mykhal c]

big congrats man!!! totally sux that you had to go thru ANY of that but i'm glad you got most of your gear back. somebody hit me in '95 for my purple-heart Tobias Sig bass...had the nerve to sit and eat while they were there too!!!! serial number #3534...i'm still lookin' for the scum!!! congrats again!!!

[Corran]

So glad it worked out for the most part!

[jchas]

Gotta love a happy ending - even a 'relatively' happy ending.
Best of luck with the rest of the gear.

[BlackestEyes]

Glad to hear you got a lot of your gear back!

It is a real shame that people do that kind of thing, especially when they are incredibly well off. But it is great that you got so much help from the police and got much of your stuff back.

[Animus]

Kid has to be an idiot. Put's stuff on ebay etc so soon after stealing it. lol

Congrats on the happy ending.

[Bubbakron]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Increased the coverage on my Renters Insurance.
Finally tracked down a company that will insure my gear everywhere. (It took a while.)

how much are you paying?

[rmx16]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Not to mentioned a house raided and a theif arrested!

I wanted to start a "stolen gear" thread with a happy ending, and let you all in on the story. Back in March, some of you may recall that I posted a thread alerting the forum that I had a significant amount of equipment stolen out of my car in my driveway (anywhere between $10k-$20k depending on how you want to do the math) in Springfield. stike

Among the items I had stolen were a rare Schoeps stereo mic, three Edirol R44 recorders, a Sontronics Apollo, a Great River MP-2M, a TL-Audio Tubetracker M3 mixer, two AT4050s, and my special collection of Nady SP5s! Plus some other rack gear + camera + video camera, etc.

The day the items were stolen, I actually ran a show (after calling the Fairfax County Police and insurance of course). Between the items the theif left and items I had down in Williamsburg, I was able to run an a cappella concert. Only took about 300 miles of driving to get everything, but I managed!

The day after the theft, I opened up my email to find a note from eBay: "eBay Saved Search: TL Audio Mixer". I took a look at the listing - these things don't pop up very often on eBay... It was from Manassas, not too far from me... And it was posted the same morning my things were stolen... And when I opened their Other Items, there was a listing for a Sabine Graphi-Q... These pop up even less often than Tubetrackers... and I'm probably the only person in the world to own both! I immediately called the police again!

To summarize a very stressful three/four weeks... more of my items popped up on eBay. The seller wouldn't meet in person. We found more of my items on Amazon. Police don't work on weekends. My Tubetracker was shipped to Albany. The buyer of the Tubetracker refused to respond to the Fairfax County Police, and so they had to send the local police to his house to check the serial number. The serial number was one digit off from my records! We were able to track down the hand-written inspection certificate, and it turns out the person who examined it writes his sixes funny. Police were sluggish in sending a subpoena to eBay/PayPal. Other items appear on eBay and Amazon which appear to be stolen. My Graphic-Q was shipped to Thailan, but intercepted and returned to police. One of my Edirol R44s was sold and shipped to Saudi Arabia. The other two were sold on Amazon. Amazon doesn't respond to police subpoenas. PayPal and eBay finally get the police the home address tied to the seller. They raid the house and find over 100 stolen items, some of which were mine and some of which were from thefts in two other counties! The theif was a 19-year old senior in high school. He wasn't there when the raided the house, so they left a note with his parents telling him to turn himself in if he knew what was good for him.

It took another week before I was able to pick up my equipment from the Evidence Room. Check it out:

Great news. Is that Don Knots standing next to you?

[JFOC]

Get a car alarm.
Suggestions????


get a magnavolt

YouTube - MagnaVolt Commercial - Lethal Response

n congrats on getting stuff back.

[CarterMaya]

Hi Norsehorse ...

Good news indeed ... hope the other items turn up eventually ... I'm sure the Slutz will be looking out for them ...

Good catching up with you in Alexandria ...

Cheers ... Carter

[Daft]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Back in March, some of you may recall that I posted a thread alerting the forum that I had a significant amount of equipment stolen out of my car in my driveway

Page 1 of "Stupidity for Dummies"

[jdg]

so happy for you!!!

[NorseHorse]

Originally Posted by Daft

Page 1 of "Stupidity for Dummies"

Thank you for your support and understanding of my situation.

JDG, thanks for your willingness to help!

To the guy below: you don't know the neighborhood, the situation, or what I do for a living. Thank you for chiming in to rain on the parade. Did you not get your gear back?

[Daft]

Originally Posted by Animus

Kid has to be an idiot. Put's stuff on ebay etc so soon after stealing it. lol

The guy who leaves his gear in his car is a bigger idiot.

[who?]

Maybe it has something to do with your location. If i remember correctly there is a club around there called Jaxx which caters to the metal crowd. Always seemed like a whole in the wall place to be. Not sure if the whole town is like this - but i would imagine springfield being a bad place to leave gear inside a car. Either way - good work tracking all that stuff down. I bet it was exhilarating to find it and get most of it back.

[Tommy-boy]

Glad you got your stuff back.

I don't do anywhere near as many gigs as you do, but I occasionally have a pile of gear in the back of my SUV. I sometimes wonder if it would be worth getting one of those smallish contractor metal enclosed trailers if I did this more often. Supposedly they can be locked up very securely. Then again, a pair of bolt cutters and a crow bar might rain on that parade too.

Side question - Do you like the Zooms anywhere near as much as you like the R44s?

[depulse]

Good to hear that most stuff was returned.

Why did you leave the stuff in the car unattended?

[Richard King]

About a year ago there was a series of car breakins in my neighborhood. They took about $1800 worth of goodies from my car including a Canon SLR digi camera and lenses, 3 high end MP-3 players, etc. They stole a cell phone from a neighbor's car and in total broke into about 7 cars in the area. They were caught when they started using the cell phone and the police tracked a few of the numbers they were calling. The main perp got 3 months behind bars and had to pay restitution. I got no equipment back, but I did get a check from the police (through the perp) for $1800, the full amount of what I claimed. The perp obviously had some $$$ because he came up with the bucks very quickly. This would indicate that he didn't really need to be ripping people off. About 3 weeks ago I got a letter from the Office of the State Attorney saying that the perp, David Eugene Eggleston of Vero Beach, Fl, has been charged with violating probation for the following offenses:
Second Degree Petit Theft
Second Degree Petit Theft
Third Degree Grand Theft
Third Degree Grand Theft
Loitering or Prowling.

It would appear that he likes being an "employee" of the state.

Congrats on getting your stuff back.

[John Eppstein]

I'm happy you got most of your gear back. BUT

Anybody who leaves their gear in the car is not only a stupid idiot, but a lazy mofo as well.

Yeah, I was too, once. Lost a whole box of nice microphones.

[ArnauTS]

It's great to know that you got almost all gear back!

[Kris]

Sweet.