Theft

When it comes to credit issues and identity theft, I sometimes feel like what we used to call a broken record. Almost incessantly, I urge readers to check their credit reports by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. Both will get you to the "central source" mandated by Congress a decade ago for consumers to request free reports from TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax, the nation's three main credit bureaus. If the reports are clean, I tell readers, there's no need to pay for a credit score - which Congress, alas, did not require the credit bureaus to provide, and did not bar them from pitching via side deals to consumers who request their free reports.

Two officers of an Elkins Park brokerage firm have been charged by Cheltenham police with stealing $25,000 by allegedly forging checks to withdraw money from a client's investment account between September and April. Michael C. Lloyd, 34, of Abington, and Warren C. Nachmann, 45, of Cheltenham, surrendered at the Cheltenham Police Administration Building on Monday. They are partners of Lloyd Securites Inc. at 7837 Old York Rd. The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Lloyd and Nachmann on June 6 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia with defrauding their clients of several hundred thousand dollars, making fraudulent sales of unregistered securities and other violations of federal securities laws.

A North Philadelphia man was arrested yesterday and charged with stealing a pair of binoculars from the balloonists who inadvertently landed in a vacant lot at 7th and Oxford streets Saturday, police said. Acting on a tip from the Daily News, police went to the home of James "Big Boy" Williams, 31, on Franklin Street near Master to charge him with the theft, police said. But Williams wasn't home, and Detective Sgts. Gerard Duffy and Shawn Trush returned to East Detectives headquarters, only to find Williams sitting there, being booked on unrelated robbery charges, police said.

Missing: One U.S. mailbox. Postal Service authorities and police are looking for a blue mailbox, complete with eagle insignias, that was stolen from the corner of Cottman Avenue and Leon Street. The box, which had been bolted to the ground, was reported missing on Nov. 13. James Covert, superintendent of the Postal Service Boulevard Station, Levick and Revere Streets, reported the theft to police after a postal worker went to the corner to empty the mailbox, and discovered it missing.

A Council Rock High School graduate was apprehended by police at his alma mater early Wednesday for trying to steal lab equipment and other school supplies, Newtown Township police said. According to the police report, Robert Daniel Wallace, 22, of 52 Knowles Ave., Churchville, broke into the school, at 62 Swamp Rd., with a second man who fled the school before police arrived. Wallace told police that he and the other man got onto the building's roof, climbed through the greenhouse windows and entered the school building through a connecting door after removing a glass pane.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI's onetime butler declared Tuesday he was innocent of a charge of aggravated theft of the pope's private correspondence, but acknowledged he photocopied the papers and said he feels guilty that he betrayed the trust of the pontiff he loves like a father. Paolo Gabriele took the stand Tuesday in a Vatican courtroom to defend himself against accusations of his role in one of the most damaging scandals of Benedict's pontificate. Prosecutors say he stole the pope's letters and documents alleging power struggles and corruption inside the Vatican and leaked them to a journalist.

A West Chester contractor has been accused of using a former customer's name to take out three fraudulent loans, totaling $22,000, Caln police said. Joseph John Gullo, 42, of the 1000 block of Forest Road, was charged with forgery, theft, receiving stolen property and attempted theft after an investigation by Caln and Uwchlan police. The transactions occurred in late December at Commercial Credit Corp. in the Caln Village Shopping Center, American General Finance Inc. in Thorndale, and Avco Financial Services in Lionville.

A 19-year-old man was in custody and his father was being sought yesterday after authorities said the men made illegal U-turns in front of police with the stolen cars they had used to burglarize three Chinese restaurants in Burlington County. Charles J. Williams Jr. of Passaic was charged with burglary and theft and was being held in the Burlington County Jail on $10,000 bail. His father, Charles J. Williams Sr. of Burlington Township was being sought on charges of burglary and aggravated assault on police.

A Tacony woman has been charged with theft after police said she defrauded a Willow Grove woman of $3,000 when she read the woman's tarot cards and said the woman and her son would die unless a spell on them was removed. Police said the victim, identified as Marsha Seigh, 37, had her cards read by the suspect, Lilly Thompson, 41, of the 7000 block of Frankford Avenue, on March 23. During the reading, investigators said, Thompson told Seigh that the cards indicated that the lives of the woman and her son were in great danger because of a spell that had been placed on them.

It was a case of one thing just leading to another. First, according to police, Steven Taylor of Wilmington, became involved in an argument with a female passenger in his car as he was driving south on I-95 about 12:15 a.m. Oct. 10. Then, Taylor pulled over to the shoulder near the Bridge Street interchange and the woman got out of the car and started to walk along the highway, police said. While she was walking, two men in a truck pulled over and offered her a ride, an offer that she refused.

A former house cleaner who stole a rare bust of Benjamin Franklin from a Bryn Mawr house where she once worked was sentenced Monday to six years in prison. U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones II also ordered three years of supervised release for Andrea Lawton, 47, of Philadelphia, for taking the 235-year-old bust by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. The bust's owner, lawyer George A. D'Angelo, had insured the bust for $735,000, but it was estimated to be worth $3 million.

John D. McDaniel, a political operative who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $100,000 from the campaign of City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin said she was sympathetic to requests from McDaniel's wife, pastor, and attorney that he be spared jail time in favor of home incarceration. But she said it was important to provide a prison sentence as a deterrent to others. "People who act in the political arena, who have positions of trust, must know that if they abuse it, there will be serious consequences," McLaughlin said.

NEW YORK - The bloodless bank heist that netted more than $45 million has left even cybercrime experts impressed by the technical sophistication, if not the virtue, of the con artists who pulled off a remarkable internationally organized attack. "It was pretty ingenious," Pace University computer science professor Darren Hayes said Friday. On the creative side, a small team of highly skilled hackers penetrated bank systems, erased withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards, and stole account numbers.

Two people were arrested in connection with an armed-robbery spree Thursday night that targeted iPhones and victimized nearly a dozen people in West Philadelphia. The first holdup involved a rowing coach and rower from Clarkson University in Upstate New York who were visiting Philadelphia for the Dad Vail Regatta, said Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives. Around 8:30 p.m., the coach and rower were confronted at gunpoint at 45th and Sansom Streets, Walker said. The victims gave up an iPhone, wallet, and bag. About 15 minutes later, three men at 43d and Regent Streets were robbed at gunpoint and surrendered three iPhones, Walker said.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Unlike the thieves in Ocean's Eleven, it appears that those behind the clockwork-precision, $50 million diamond heist at Brussels Airport may not get a Hollywood ending. After three months of virtual silence, authorities struck this week, detaining at least 31 people in a three-nation sweep and recovering so many diamonds from the loot Antwerp traders lost that they are still figuring out the exact value. Officials said that among the people held in Belgium, France, and Switzerland were some with violent criminal pasts; the one person held in France is believed to have been one of the airport robbers.

Thieves have taken more than $15,000 in metal, likely for scrap, in what Mount Laurel police said were unusual thefts for the township. In a recent theft, about 30 metal shopping carts were stolen between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m. Friday from the ShopRite at 1000 Nixon Dr., just north of where Route 73 and I-295 meet. An unidentified witness saw someone pushing the carts down Route 73. No description was provided, said Lt. Paul Modugno, a police spokesman. A ShopRite manager declined to comment, citing corporate policy.

A Rutgers University student is in dire straits for a common foible - failing to back up stuff on the computer. Five years of the student's doctoral research disappeared last week. It had been kept on a laptop that was stolen April 19 from a university chemistry building in New Brunswick, N.J. With his thesis defense looming, the chemistry doctoral student put up fliers around campus offering to pay $1,000 to get his research back. "If you stole my laptop and now you are reading this letter, I would like to say that you can keep the computer and I would like to pay you money for my data under D drive.

STEALING A house in Philadelphia is still relatively simple, and if you ask City Councilman Bill Greenlee, not enough has changed to fix the problem since the Daily News first reported on the issue more than a decade ago. That's why Greenlee plans to introduce a bill today that would require the Records Department to verify that a seller of a house matches the name of the owner on city records when deeds are recorded. Questionable deeds would still be recorded, but stamped "not certified.

A Philadelphia woman pleaded guilty Monday in Montgomery County Court to taking a $3 million bust of Benjamin Franklin from a Bryn Mawr home where she worked as a house cleaner. The bust, by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, was recovered, but had been damaged in the theft. Andrea Lawton, 47, pleaded in Judge Carolyn Tornetta Carluccio's courtroom to one count of burglary and one count of criminal conspiracy to commit burglary, at what was supposed to be the beginning of her trial on those charges.

Oh, look: a letter from the IRS. My electronically filed tax return has been received . . . and rejected. Some crook filed a tax return via my Social Security number (stolen). Hello, identity theft. Hello, faceless cyber-burglars beyond reach. It's a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the U.S. Treasury inspector general for tax administration, who pegs the cost at $21 billion over the next five years. I'm but one of millions who have had their IDs stolen. Like them, I'm now scurrying to restore my info and shore up protection against these slimy genius hacker-creeps.