Technology strikes back in Craigslist thefts
Knuckleheads.
It’s the word Carpentersville police have used to describe a pair of local teenagers accused of stealing from a man of an $8,000 watch they saw advertised on Craigslist Sunday, re-listing it on the website for $6,500, only to unwittingly arrange for the victim to buy it from them, police said. But the victim brought police to the meeting.
Jonathan B. Miller, and Myshawn L. Bonds, both 18, and both of the first block of Oxford Road in Carpentersville, face charges of theft. One in the case of the watch; the other in the case of a stolen computer.
According to Carpentersville Cmdr. Timothy Bosshart:
A Hoffman Estates man was trying to sell a MacBook laptop computer on Craigslist for $1,650, and an unidentified man arranged to meet him Dec. 10 in a parking lot at Dundee-Crown High School, which is near where the suspects live.
The man gave his computer to two teenagers and as the man reached into his vehicle for the power cord, the two ran off with the laptop.
But that particular computer has a locator and a camera that the owner activated remotely. The pictures showed a computer shop and the locator showed that the shop was inside Spring Hill Mall. “Our officer took the pictures over to West Dundee, showed it to one of their officers and he said, ‘I know where that store is,’” Bosshart said.
The photographs led police to a computer repair shop in the mall where they found the laptop.
The shop bought the computer from Miller for $405, but not before he showed them his photo ID, which a store employee photographed for its records and later showed police. Bonds took the $405.
Back to the pricey watch.
According to Cmdr. Bosshart, eight days later on Dec. 18, a man arranged to meet with a Skokie man who had listed a Roger Dubuis watch valued at $16,700 on Craigslist, but was willing to sell it for $8,000.
Bonds and Miller met the man in the same parking lot as before and one of the teens got into the man’s vehicle. As the man showed him the watch, the teen grabbed it out of his hand and both teens ran away.
That evening, the victim told police that he saw his watch advertised on Craiglist for $6,500 and said he knew it was his watch because whoever posted it for sale used the same pictures he’d had in his original listing and included the serial number on his watch.
The victim, posing as a customer, arranged to meet the teenagers at 8 p.m. Monday in a parking lot off Route 25.
“Of course, the police were there and when the bad guy (Bonds) showed up with the watch, he was arrested,” Bosshart said.
Miller showed up some time later and police arrested him as well.
Miller was charged with theft — a Class 2 felony — for the watch.
Bonds was charged with theft — a Class 3 felony — in the computer case.
Bail was set Wednesday at $30,000 for Miller and $15,000 for Bonds. They’ll need to pay 10 percent of those amounts to get out of jail while their cases moves through the courts. According to the Kane County jail website, neither one had posted bond as of Thursday.
Both teens are due in court Jan. 9.
Conviction on Class 2 felony offers a prison sentence from three to seven years. Meanwhile, a Class 3 conviction carries between two and five years in prison.