Articles Posted in Theft Crimes

The Baltimore Police Department is warning motorists of the rising threat of armed carjackings presently occurring throughout the city. These incidents have taken place in record numbers in areas such as Homewood near John’s Hopkins and in the Brooklyn and Cherry Hill areas of south Baltimore. Most of the cases appear to be carried out by two or more individuals who initiate a minor fender bender on city streets. As the unsuspecting driver exits his or her car, one of the individuals from the accident-initiating car exits and confronts the driver. Many times the co-conspirators have used physical force to neutralize the driver before stealing his or her vehicle. Other times the robbers have used the threat of force such as brandishing a weapon to prevent the driver from resisting. Either way these incidents have caught the eye of city police officers, and have prompted the department to issue media warnings to motorists.

Police spokesmen have advised anyone involved in a minor traffic accident to stay in their vehicle with the doors locks and to call 911 immediately. The main message from police is that personal safety is far more important than properly exchanging insurance information for a claim. If handled correctly the thieves likely will either abort their criminal plan or flee the scene. Through the first four months of 2016 city law enforcement has documented 110 carjacking robberies compared to 75 during the first four months of last year. Standard automobile thefts are also up almost 20 percent so far this year, with 1,359 being reported as of April 30. The use of any type of physical force during the act of stealing a car will trigger charges for carjacking, which is a serious violent felony that carries a 30-year maximum jail sentence under section 3-405 of the Maryland Code. If a firearm is used the defendant faces an additional mandatory 5-year sentence. Just as in any robbery case, even the threat of force is enough to trigger a felony charge over a standard theft charge. This is true regardless of whether the culprit has the ability to actually carry out the threat, as all that matters is whether the victim reasonably believed the robber could follow through.

Advancements in anti theft technology in most new cars have resulted in a steady trend of decreasing automobile theft cases. In 2003 there were over 8,000 incidents, but in the last few years this number has been between 4,000 and 5,000. It appears that this year the number of car thefts will break 5,000 though, so hopefully this does not signal a shift in the recent trend. Motor vehicle theft falls under 7-105 of the Maryland Code, and is a felony with a 5-year maximum penalty.

A 27-year old man from Linthicum has been charged with first degree assault, robbery, and theft after stealing tip jar money from a Glen Burnie restaurant, and the problems for the defendant go way beyond this recent arrest. Ann Arundel police responded to the restaurant around 8 p.m., and after obtaining a physical description of the suspect they began to canvass the area. It didn’t take long before he was located on Ritchie Highway, not far from the scene of the alleged crime. Officers detained the man and took him back to the restaurant where employees made a positive identification. While taking cash from a tip jar is more akin to shoplifting than robbery, the charges do appear to be legally justified not because of the man’s actions, but rather because of his words.

Chances are high that one or more of the charges will be dropped when the case goes to court, though the alleged facts did rise to the level of a robbery and perhaps a first degree assault. As the defendant took the cash he told an employee that if the police were called he would take out his gun and use it. Had he remained silent while looting the jar, the only justifiable charge would have been theft. And based on the fact that there was less than $100 taken it would have been a petty theft with a 90-day maximum jail sentence. But a robbery, generally defined as a theft with force, occurred the second he mentioned the gun. Under Maryland law a verbal threat to cause harm is legally the same as actually causing physical harm with respect to robbery. While a robber who physically hurt someone during his or her crime would in theory face a harsher sentence from the judge, physical harm is irrelevant at the trial stage. It is also irrelevant whether the defendant actually possessed a gun and could carry out the threat, as the issue is whether the victim reasonably felt in danger. The suspect probably never had a gun based on the fact that he was not not arrested with any type of firearm and was not charged with armed robbery.

This robbery arrest is hardly the extent of the defendant’s legal issues because it turns out that he was recently released from jail after serving nearly six months for a sexual offense. Upon his release from the Anne Arundel County detention center the defendant was placed on supervised probation, and faces a lengthy prison sentence should he be found to have violated his probation. The arrest is enough to initiate the violation of probation process, but he can’t be punished unless the state proves that he committed the offense at trial or after a plea. While the state will likely be asking for major prison time if a violation is proven, a reasonable judge should factor in that the defendant never had a gun, and was probably penniless and perhaps even homeless after just getting out of jail.  On the other hand, theft while mentioning the use of a firearm is not something that even the most lenient judge will take lightly.

Although crime and calls to service were down throughout Maryland during the historic snowstorm, police and firefighters in Baltimore City were still well prepared to respond if called upon during the blizzard. The National Guard supplied both agencies with military style Humvees, and as it turned out they were put to good use. The city fire department was called to assist with a deadly residential blaze, and was aided by a snowplow in arriving on scene. In addition to patrolling the snow packed streets in marked and unmarked SUVs and the occasional Humvee, the police department was also forced to respond to a few crime scenes. During the early morning hours last Saturday, right in the heart of the record-breaking storm, there were multiple break ins including five reported pharmacy burglaries in the Baltimore area. Police made one arrest in a food store burglary, as officers allegedly observed two suspects climbing out of a store window through the blinding snow while on patrol at 3:30 a.m. One of the suspects vanished into the whiteout, but the other was arrested and charged. Unfortunately for the local business owners there were some who saw the epic blizzard conditions as an opportunity to carry out a quick score, which would theoretically be met with less resistance. Police currently have not made arrests in the pharmacy burglaries, and it is unknown whether they have any suspects at this point.

Pharmacy burglaries have become increasingly common around the state, and especially in the Baltimore area. The pharmacies are not targeted for their cash, as it is rarely stored on the premises. Many transactions are paid with credit card or billed directly to the insurance companies, which is the reason why we rarely see a pharmacy being help up in a robbery. Rather, burglars target pharmacies for their valuable inventory. The pills kept in even the smallest independent pharmacies often have aggregate values exceeding $250,000. And while there is little street value for much of the inventory, the narcotics and anti anxiety medications such as Xanax can sell for thousands on the street. The chain pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens are more secure, and the pharmacy is typically located in the back of a larger storefront. Some are open 24 hours and have security on site. But many of the smaller, independent pharmacies are not protected in the same manner. These shops are susceptible to break ins, and can have their narcotics targeted even if they are placed in safes or locked cabinets during the night. The drugs can be hard to identify though, and unless it’s an inside job the burglar will typically need extra the time to sort through the inventory. This is probably why the snowstorm produced five pharmacy burglaries in just one night, as the perpetrators assumed the weather would give them the necessary time cushion to locate their plunder. We will follow these snowstorm burglaries and may post a follow up article if the cops happen to make an arrest.

Benjamin Herbst is a Maryland burglary defense attorney who handles cases in all counties and in Baltimore City. Contact The Herbst Firm at 410-207-2598 for a free consultation about your case.

The Howard County Police recently reported that social media has led to the arrest of two burglary suspects, whose crime spree spanned multiple counties. One of the suspects is a 46 year-old male, while the other is a 22 year-old female. Both are accused of felony first-degree burglary and theft in Howard County and in Baltimore County, and the pair is currently in custody awaiting trial in the Baltimore County Detention center. Other charges include 4^th degree burglary and false documentation. The alleged burglaries, which occurred 10 days apart back in August, have been indicted by a grand jury and will now be brought before a circuit court judge. The two suspects were not caught in the act, and managed to steer clear of law enforcement for almost a month. Ultimately though the pair was identified after the Howard County Police utilized social media in an attempt to generate leads. The modern crime-solving tool proved successful; arrest warrants were issued in the first week of September and both suspects were jailed less than two weeks later.

While police have only been utilizing social media for a few years, this crime-solving tactic has gained a tremendous amount of steam. Almost every law enforcement agency in the country has some sort of social media outlet such as Twitter or Facebook, and now it has become commonplace to ask the public for tips through these outlets. Law enforcement embraces the same benefits of social media as any business or private citizen. Social medial allows police to reach a large number of people at a fraction of the effort and cost of traditional methods such as billboard or television. The Howard County Police Department has roughly 38 thousand followers on Twitter, and can reach each of these followers immediately with a two-line tweet that takes a minute to type. The Baltimore County Police Department is a little behind with roughly 13 thousand followers, but even with this smaller number the effects can be considerable.

In addition to police departments soliciting information about crime through their own posts and tweets, law enforcement also takes advantage of social media in other ways. There have been numerous cases where police linked up stolen property to a person’s Facebook account. This usually occurs when the thief is attempting to sell the hot goods online, but it could also be in the form of posts and pictures of the suspects with the stolen property. In other crimes, Twitter accounts could also reveal where a suspect was at a specific time, and whom that suspect was with. Police detectives have now made it a habit to scan the social media accounts of all their suspects. In criminal cases involving juvenile or young adults police will often scan the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts of friends and classmates of the defendants and victims. The results have ranged from generating probable cause for a warrant, all the way up to providing prosecutors with evidence at trial. Defense attorneys are now seeing discovery packets laced with screen shots and printouts from social media sites. The public format of these sites makes the evidence difficult to suppress, as no warrants are required to scan a person’s Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Committing the perfect crime is a deceiving proposition. While a perfectly executed heist may result in co-conspirators leaving the scene with their score, perfection in often the fatal mistake that causes their arrest a short time later. Whenever a robbery, theft, or burglary is performed at exactly the most opportune time, with the highest value and the least possible resistance, a seasoned detective will automatically assume an inside job. The suspect pool for an inside job is infinitely smaller, thus ruling out insiders is often the first step for law enforcement. Just like a murder case where cops often focus their initial inquiry on the current or ex-spouse, in a heist police first turn to employees of the business that was robbed. This is exactly what happened almost 3 years ago when over $270,000 was stolen from an armored car employee in Prince George’s County.

In the fall of 2012 the branch manager of a Hyattsville Bank of America conspired with one of her security guards and four other men to steal the bank’s money. The six carried out their plan on November 21, while the manager and the security guard were both on duty at the bank. Just as an armored car employee carrying the large amount of cash was leaving the bank the armed co-conspirators pounced. There was little resistance, and the four hired guns drove off with the money in vans they had parked outside the bank. Nobody was injured, and for a while the bank manager and her crew happily split their share of around 45 thousand each.

For a short time all six probably thought they got away with it. But federal agents, who typically handle bank robberies due to the money being federally insured, were not stumped for long. The four gun-toting bandits knew the time of the pickup, and that particular day the cash load was particularly large. Few people would have this type of knowledge, so agents were left with two scenarios. One theory would have been a team of highly experienced bank robbers who did thorough research on the bank before carrying out their flawless plan. But to risk their lives for a mere $270 thousand split four ways was unlikely, and something not even fit for the movie screen. The other theory would have been an inside job, where the bank employees and their crew knew the chance of being foiled in the act was low.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office recently announced the indictments of more than a dozen defendants involved in a large-scale theft ring in Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, the Washington D.C. metro area. This particular criminal organization has apparently been in operation since 2009, and is allegedly responsible for the theft of over $5 million worth of cars, cash, jewelry, and electronics. The FBI has reportedly linked over 100 auto thefts to the group, as well as the looting of multiple ATMs. The group also stole personal identification information such as credit card numbers, and would sell or fraudulently use the information. Seven of the defendants were arrested during search warrants carried out by state, local, and federal law enforcement officers. In total 140 cops were involved in executing the eleven search warrants in the racketeering conspiracy. Two of the defendants were already in custody on other charges, while five remain at large, with $5,000 rewards being offered for information leading to their arrest.

The indictments were recently unsealed, and now details of the crime ring’s inner workings has been revealed to the public. Among the groups tactics were stealing cars while they were unlocked at gas stations, outside of homes, and even at cemeteries. Group members would then use the stolen vehicles to commit other crimes such as robbery and burglary. In fact a recent robbery of a couple at a cemetery has been linked to members of the group. Information obtained in the investigation, headed up by the Baltimore office of the FBI, revealed that the group would regularly meet to discuss new ideas to carry out thefts and other crimes. As is typical of these investigations, law enforcement officers recovered numerous incriminating text messages and social media posts between group members. In some conversations defendants discuss the sale of stolen cars and guns, with at least one conversation including a picture of stolen firearms. These conversations are all fair game for use at trial, and will likely allow federal prosecutors to make easy work of many of the cases.

Each indicted member of the theft ring faces multiple felony counts in federal court, and most of the counts are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The cases will be prosecuted at the United States District Court in Greenbelt, and while there are no trial dates as of yet, it’s likely that many of the members will enter into plea agreements with the government over the next few months. As is usually the case in multi defendant conspiracy prosecutions, the first handful to plea will likely receive the best offers. The defendants range in age from as young as 22 to as old as 54, so they will likely have varying degrees of criminal records. Defendants with numerous prior convictions will undoubtedly face the harshest sentences, and may find it difficult to obtain a reasonable plea deal. The younger defendants may be enticed into taking a deal with the caveat that they would have to testify against other members if the cases were to go to trial. What started out as a close-knit ring could easily turn into a situation where every man is just looking out for himself. The Blog will follow the progress of these cases, and we may post a follow up article of some interesting news comes out of the courthouse.