Auto Theft

Auto thefts reported in the Northeast rose 35 percent last year, to 3,020, and the head of the Northeast Detective Division says the number of thefts will keep soaring as long as there is a lack of aggressive prosecution and those arrested aren't put in jail. "Nobody goes to jail when they are arrested. They are just being put back out on the street to do it again," said Capt. James Nocco. As of last Friday, 520 auto thefts already had been reported here for 1990, said Nocco.

A man who said he had been homeless and living on the street for three weeks was charged by Bensalem police last Thursday with auto theft after he entered a car left running by its owner outside a Route 13 fast food restaurant and drove off. Christian Ball, 19, who told police he had no permanent address, was in Bucks County Prison yesterday after being unable to post $25,000 bail. Bensalem Police Capt. Jack Robinson said Ball's brief flight was in a car owned by David Brown, 21, of the 4200 block of Lawnside Road, Philadelphia.

One man has been arrested and several others are being sought in connection with the theft of 14 new and used cars earlier this year from Sheehy Ford, police said. The stolen vehicles are estimated to be worth in excess of $182,000 and were taken sometime between Jan. 20 and Feb 1. Police said that two separate auto theft rings were involved. Elliot Clement, 18, of the 6500 block of Woodstock Street, has been charged with two counts each of auto theft and receiving stolen property in connection with the thefts.

Anthony M. "Tony" Kane, a nationally recognized expert on auto theft and a retired, highly decorated Philadelphia police officer, died of cancer Saturday. He was 55 and lived in Roxborough. Kane retired from the Police Department in 1987 and became a senior agent for the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). He directed its tristate operations. The NICB, headquartered in Illinois, works with local police and insurance companies investigating auto theft. Kane was considered by those in and out of law enforcement to be among the very best.

A 19-year-old man was arrested Sunday morning after police said he burglarized three stores in Bustleton and then led them on a car chase for several blocks. The chase ended, police said, when the car - which was reported stolen - struck a parked car in the 9300 block of Neil Road. William Krainsky, 19, of the 1900 block of Nester Road, was charged with burglary and auto theft. Capt. James Nocco, commander of the Northeast Detective Division, said Krainsky fled from police after the accident, but was apprehended shortly before 6:30 a.m. a few blocks away on foot in the 9600 block of Bustleton Avenue.

A 14-year veteran of the Doylestown Township Police Department, his wife and two Bristol Township auto shop owners were charged yesterday with faking a car theft in order to reap profits from insurance and the resale of the car. The police officer, Robert Teeling, was arrested yesterday morning along with Everett Farr 3d, one of the owners of CTI Unlimted auto detailing, according to Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein. Teeling's wife, Laurel, was expected to be in custody today, as was the fourth suspect, Charles Sparks Jr. Teeling, 35, of the 1500 block of Russel Drive in Warminster, has been a Doylestown Township patrolman since 1978, but has not been on active duty since he was injured while apprehending a suspect in June 1989, said Doylestown Township Police Chief Steve White.

More cars have been reported stolen in the Northeast since January than in all of 1989, when cars were stolen in record numbers. And thefts in the Northeast have increased at a dramatically higher rate than thefts citywide. An unofficial tally from a check of Northeast police records showed 3,682 autos reported stolen by Oct. 15, compared with 1989's year-end total of 3,020. Nearly 1,000 more autos were stolen during the first nine-and-one-half months of 1990 than during the same period in 1989, for an increase of about 36 percent.

Three Philadelphia men drove a stolen car to see a friend in Bucks County Prison. And they ended up staying. On July 17, Richard A. Cake, 35; Albert J. Hemmerle Jr., 34, and Scott A. Thomas, 26, took a ride to the prison to see a friend. While Cake went inside the jail, Hemmerle and Thomas drove the car, a 1984 Buick Riviera, to the Barn Plaza Shopping Center nearby. The car had been reported stolen in Feasterville July 14. While at the shopping center, Hemmerle and Thomas found a purse belonging to a woman.

Bensalem Township police raided a warehouse early yesterday and arrested eight men on charges of running a $1 million auto theft and insurance fraud ring. "I think we can safely say it is the most sizable (bust) in Bucks County history," said Bucks County District Attorney Alan Rubenstein. During a two-year investigation, police said they learned that at numerous locations in Middletown Township the ring was "replating," or changing the vehicle identification numbers of, automobiles that members stole or obtained illegally from employees at car dealerships and from people who falsely reported them stolen to collect insurance money.

A 13-year-old girl was charged yesterday with stealing her uncle's car and ramming two police officers who were conducting an unrelated automobile investigation. Police said the two uniformed officers, Lillian Burroughs, 23, and Michelle McCurdy, 24, both assigned to the 25th Police District, Front and Westmoreland streets, were in satisfactory condition at Temple University Hospital yesterday. The officers were standing next to a 1981 Fiat they had stopped on 5th Street near Clearfield about 10:30 Saturday night when the 1979 Toyota driven by the teen-ager went out of control, police said.

With Wednesday's arrest of 14 people linked to the apparent theft of $1 million worth of auto parts from the Bensalem Township School District over a decade, law enforcement and school officials are trying to understand how the situation went unchecked for so long. In particular, officials wonder how Jack Myers, the former business manager, who oversaw the district's $100 million annual budget, failed to recognize any financial malfeasance. Myers was charged with theft and misappropriation of government property.

A 10-year-old boy stole a truck on a West Philadelphia street Sunday and smashed it into five parked cars before neighbors caught him, police said. The white Ford truck was parked on the 6200 block of Market Street while its owner moved furniture from an apartment, according to police spokeswoman Officer Christine O'Brien. The boy swiped the keys from a back door of the truck and tried to drive away, she said. He got barely a block before neighbors detained him. No one was injured, O'Brien said.

Brothers arrested in auto-theft ring * Creston Street near Castor Avenue Two brothers who allegedly stole and stripped more than 80 cars were arrested yesterday morning in Oxford Circle after a five-month police investigation, the Major Crimes Unit announced. Alexander Ramos, 36, and his brother Eduardo, 30, each face 71 counts of auto theft, criminal mischief and conspiracy charges, among others, said Capt. Leonard Ditchkofsky, commanding officer of the unit. The accused brothers targeted Hondas and stole them from nearly every neighborhood in the city, police said.

Former Phillies and New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra was convicted of three counts of grand theft auto and filing a false financial statement after declining to challenge the charges in Los Angeles. Dykstra, 48, pleaded "no contest" in court Wednesday and faces as long as four years in state prison. He was released pending his sentencing on Jan. 20. American cyclist Floyd Landis and his former manager Arnie Baker went on trial in absentia in France on Thursday over allegations they spearheaded a plot to hack into an anti-doping laboratory's computers.

Auto-shop theft charge * Baltimore Pike near Lexington Avenue in Clifton Heights A Delaware County woman has been charged with embezzling more than $150,000 from her employer, Keenan Auto Body. Fellow workers noticed that Lisa Collazzo, 50, of Morton, had allegedly altered the computer accounts. Collazzo admitted to company officials that she had been stealing "a lot" of money since 2007. Between 2007 and April 2011, Collazzo was responsible for 302 questionable cashier transactions, according to court documents.

For a trio of Chester County car thieves, the unlocked black Mercedes Benz in Charlestown Township was a trove of unexpected bonuses: its keys, a $3,800 Tiffany diamond ring, a $1,000 Acer laptop and a $600 Louis Vuitton briefcase. The group typically grabbed vehicles just for joyriding, ditching them in areas ranging from South Philadelphia to Wilmington, according to the prosecutor. But when they found valuables inside, at least one netted extra cash by selling the items on eBay.

THE BEST WAY to get teenagers in Philadelphia to put down their weapons is to keep our decades-old promise to provide them a better life and access to higher education. According to research from Enrico Moretti, associate economics professor at the University of California in Berkeley: A one-year increase in average schooling reduces murder and assault by almost 30 percent, auto theft by 20 percent, arson by 13 and burglary and larceny by about 6. A 10 percent increase in graduation rates would potentially reduce murder and assault rates by about 20 percent, vehicle theft by about 13 percent and arson by 8 percent.

Law enforcement officials in Bucks County and Delaware are seeking a man and a woman on allegations they stole a car from a man killed Friday evening in Bensalem. Heather H. Lavelle, 35, and James R. Savage Jr., 39, were last seen during a robbery of an Auto Zone store in Seaford, Del., at 5:15 p.m. Sunday, Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons said at a news conference yesterday. They were in a car taken from the dwelling of Christian Rojas, 28, who was found bludgeoned to death at 3 a.m. Saturday in his apartment in the 3000 block of Bristol Road, Bensalem, Gibbons said.

The number of crimes committed in what one research company deemed America's most dangerous city fell 24 percent in the first three months of this year. Statistics released yesterday by Camden police show the number of robberies fell 32 percent, from 192 to 130, compared with the same period in 2004. Reported burglaries dropped 25 percent, from 261 to 195; auto theft dipped 24 percent, from 303 to 229; and arsons fell 41 percent, from 46 to 27. Police Chief Edwin Figueroa attributed the numbers to the department's experimental 28-day suppression efforts in selected crime-infested neighborhoods.

IT'S A mother's worst nightmare: A 9-year-old dragged from her San Jose, Calif., home in broad daylight is kidnapped and raped over three days before being released by her attacker. The story made headlines all last week. Now, here is the story behind the story that the liberal media has failed to tell. The man arrested and charged with nine felony counts related to the terrifying abduction and sexual assault is an illegal alien. As of this writing late last week, not a single newspaper covering the story has bothered to report accused attacker's immigration history.