Nassau man charged in thefts of GPS units

A North Bellmore man was caught breaking into cars and stealing portable global positioning systems on Thursday, a day after the Nassau County police department's public appeal for car owners to protect their valuable equipment, authorities said Friday.

Christopher Quinn, 26, of 1422 Coolidge St. was arraigned on five counts of petty larceny and five counts of criminal mischief in First District Court in Hempstead on Friday, where he was ordered held on bail of $40,000 bond or $20,000 cash.

Around 9:14 a.m. Thursday, a civilian parking enforcement agent saw Quinn leaning into a shattered window of a parked car at the Wantagh railroad station, said Det. Sgt. William Carey of the Seventh Squad.

The agent, a 12-year veteran named Koren Urquhart, saw Quinn take a black case out of the car and put it into his own car, left idling nearby, Carey said. Quinn then noticed Urquhart watching him and told her that the car with the shattered window belonged to a friend, Carey said.

Urquhart told him to stay in his car while she radioed for backup, and when officers searched Quinn's car they recovered a Sirius Satellite Radio, two GPS units, a radar detector and a Whelan light bar similar to what volunteer firefighters put in their cars, though it was unclear if the lights had been stolen from an emergency worker's car, Carey said.

Quinn told police that he broke into two other cars at the Wantagh train station, and the investigators also found two cars at the Bellmore train station that had been broken into Thursday morning, police said.

On Wednesday, Nassau police announced that thefts of GPS units have risen 500 percent in January over the same period last year, and officers asked the public to take valuables out of parked cars and to wipe off smudges left by the suction cups that mount GPS units to windshields.

While it was unclear whether or how Quinn had targeted the cars at the train stations, one officer said station parking lots can make easy marks.

"Railroad stations have been specifically targeted because know that you're going to be gone most of the day," said Det. Mike Bitsko.

Efforts to reach Urquhart and Quinn's family were unsuccessful Friday.

By BY SOPHIA CHANG
Posted Saturday, February 9, 2008

 E-mail this page
 Printer-friendly page