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THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 27, 2002
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Stealing Laptop Computers
Owners Were In NYC On Business
A Corona resident has been charged with criminal possession of three laptop computers that had been reported stolen last year by owners in North Carolina and Nebraska.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown identified the defendant as Marlown Caso, 27, of 55-02 97th Street in Corona. He is charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third and Fourth Degree and faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
The criminal complaint charges that the defendant criminally possessed three IBM Think Pad laptop computers each valued at more than $3,000 on March 22, 2001 about 7 p.m. at 55-02 97th Street. The computer owners told detectives that they reported to local authorities last year that their laptop computers had been stolen from their hotel rooms in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Omaha, Nebraska, where they were traveling on business.
Detectives of the NYPD’s Queens Transit Robbery Squad, the Morris County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s Office and Hanover Township, New Jersey Police Department on March 22, 2001 executed a search warrant drafted by the District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau and recovered in the defendant’s basement apartment about 300 assorted laptop computers including the three IBM Think Pad computers charged in the criminal complaint. It is believed that the defendant evaded apprehension by fleeing to Florida.
District Attorney Brown said, “The investigation related to the stockpile of laptop computers recovered by detectives from the defendant’s apartment in Corona is continuing.”
The defendant was arraigned on December 16 in Queens Criminal Court. Judge Debra Stevens Modoca set bail of $30,000 and a return date of December 30.
District Attorney Brown noted that the charges were the result of an ongoing investigation of a series of laptop computer thefts from hotel rooms nationwide.
The investigation was conducted by Detective Chris Then of the Morris County, New Jersey, Prosecutors Office, Detective Thomas Quirk of the Hanover Township, New Jersey, Police Department and Detective Gary Marmaro of the NYPD Queens Transit Robbery Squad under the supervision of Sergeant Scott Guginsky.
Assistant District Attorney Kateri Gasper of the District Attorney’s Civil Enforcement Bureau’s Computer Technology Unit is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Anthony Communiello, Bureau Chief, and Robert Alexander, unit Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter Crusco and Assistant District Attorney Linda Cantoni, Counsel to the Investigation Division.
It was noted that criminal charges are merely accusations and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.