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Lost cell phone links thief to crime

NICOLE FORMOSA
summit daily news

Up Against the Wall appears biweekly. All accounts are rewritten from Summit County law enforcement agency logs. Names are withheld for privacy; individuals are assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

SUMMIT COUNTY ” Here’s one for the stupid criminal file: If you’re going to rob a house, don’t leave your personal effects (read: cell phone) at the scene.

A man called police to report that his laptop had been stolen from under his bed at his home, and that there was a cell phone next to where his computer should’ve been.



Police called a few numbers on the phone and spoke to a man who told the deputy who the phone belonged to. Police tracked down the suspect at home and the women said it was her phone, but denied stealing the computer.

A quick search of the room she was staying revealed the truth. A laptop matching the description of the stolen computer was sitting on her bedroom floor. She confessed and was arrested for burglary and theft.



Police were called to a restaurant at one of the local ski resorts for a report of shoplifting. It seems a man decided to take a piece of pizza without paying for the slice. A manager witnessed the theft and asked the man for an explanation. The man said he thought his friend was going to cover the cost of his lunch. The manager left to confirm the story and had one of his employees keep an eye on pizza guy. At that point, pizza guy decided to stage a getaway and darted out of the office, but he didn’t get very far. He crashed into an exit door, breaking a door frame, lost his balance and fell. Security officers held him down until police arrived. He was cited for theft and criminal mischief.

Skis and snowboards are stolen often during the ski season as many people leave their gear unlocked while they grab a drink or run to the restroom. It’s rare, though, that the thief is caught. One man left his board on a rack for 10 minutes and it disappeared. He spotted another man carrying his board, escorted him to guest serviced and called police.

The thief said he came to the base area of the mountain looking for a new snowboard, saw one he liked and took it. He said he was only going to ride the board for a little while and didn’t intend on actually stealing it. He was taken to jail.

Early one morning, police were called to a condo complex for a man screaming for help and saying he was going to die.

It wasn’t hard to find the man, as he was hanging over the railing of a second floor balcony, had urinated himself and his clothing was disheveled. He told police he had recently left the bar and was looking for his buddy to get a ride home.

One neighbor said he’d been knocking on all the doors since 11 p.m., and was outside screaming for help because he was cold and thought he was going to die.

The man told the deputy that he’d left the bar at 2 a.m., and when the deputy asked what he’d been doing in the three hours since then, he answered, “Time traveling.”

The deputy found 1.18 ounces of pot, a scale, a pipe and a baggie on the man. He said he sold the drugs to his friends.

He spent the rest of the morning in jail.

Up Against the Wall is most often a venue to poke fun at criminals in the county, but every now and then, it really does seem like that criminal is getting the short end of the stick. In this case, two roommates heard a noise in their condo and found a strange man in their house. One of the roommates asked what he was doing there, and he didn’t answer. The roommate told the man to leave, and he did. When police arrived, the two said nothing was missing or out of place in their residence, and that the stranger may have been from the unit directly above theirs.

Police went upstairs and talked to three men in the unit. One of them admitted he was in the downstairs unit because he thought that was where he was staying. The roommates decided to press charges against the man and he was arrested for first degree criminal trespass and taken to jail.

Nicole Formosa can be reached at (970) 668-4629, or at nformosa@summitdaily.com.


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