Just weeks ago, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly touted the 141 arrests netted in an NYPD sting targeting criminals buying and selling stolen iPhones and iPads. Now one defendant is claiming his arrest was unfair.
The suspects in Operation Take Back were mostly nabbed by undercover cops posing as thieves who offered the pricey electronics at wild discounts.
Robert Tester, 19, of Dyker Heights, was one defendant approached in the sting. “This guy came out of nowhere,” said Tester. “He said he had an iPhone.”
Tester, a freshman at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said he was leaving a study session at the library when the undercover officer, unsolicited, started pressuring him to buy the iPhone.
The teen said the officer tried to persuade him to make an offer for the smartphone with a hard-luck story.
“He said he had a daughter and he said he had to feed her for Christmas,” Tester said.
Ultimately, Tester admitted, he made an offer of $20 for the iPhone. He was charged with receiving stolen property.
Tester’s family says the street-level purchase was essentially an act of charity.
“The person said to him, ‘My daughter, my family is struggling. I’m out of work,’ and my son did everything we taught him to do,” said Robert Tester, Jr., the defendant’s father.
The NYPD is standing by the arrest.
“The officer told the suspect that he had stolen the iPhone from an Apple store in Manhattan and wanted $50 for it,” said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne. “The suspect offered $20, the officer agreed, and the exchange was made.”
After hearing of the undercover arrest, City Councilman Vincent Gentile wrote a letter to Kelly requesting a full review of Operation Take Back.
“Trying to root out merchants who are known dealers in stolen electronics is one matter; luring unsuspecting and otherwise law-abiding teenagers to ‘buy’ goods from undercover officers is another matter entirely,” Gentile wrote.
Tester is now considering a civil counter-suit against the NYPD. His lawyer accused the undercover officer of trying to pad arrest statistics.
“You’re really going out and manufacturing crimes where there weren’t any otherwise,” said defense attorney Matthew Galluzzo. “But these are law-abiding people.”
(Source: NBC New York)
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4 Responses
In a recent article of Zman, they have a story of the same type: Where the NYPD would put a package on the floor and arrest someone if they took it – on the grounds that they stole the bag. A frume woman, who was with her children, took the bag and told her children that they will look for the owner to be able to return it that person. Instead, she was arrested and with much grief and aggravation,paying a lawyer and having to defend herself, she got off.
They should insist on hidden tape recording.
If this is true the nypd are sleaze bags
I don’t understand the problem here. The undercover cop told the kid that it was stolen so the kid had no business buying it. The beginning of the article makes it sound like he was pushed into buying a cheap iPhone to help feed the guy’s family which is fine. Then it says that he was b’feirush told that it was stolen which changes everything. The kid should have said no, and walked away and called the police in the “thief”. If he was pushed even more he should have screamed for help. There is no excuse to knowingly buy stolen property.
#3 – read the article again if you don’t see the problem here. There are two versions of the story – what the cops claim, and what the ‘victim’ claims. If what the cop said is true, then no one argues that the kid shouldn’t have bought it. But no one knows what the cop really said.
There are just so many cases out there that are the word of a cop vs. the word of a victim. Generally the cops are favored by the justice system, who are used to dealing primary with criminals that make up the most ridiculous stories. But unfortunately the cops sometimes also lie, and innocent victims suffer. Because the cops get away with it all the time, the problem grows.
I am sure many of us have some experience with this with regards to traffic tickets. The supposed rights of “Innocent until proven guilty” are a theory only. The cops typically do not actually have to present any ‘proof’ whatsoever.