Two oddballs have been busted for swiping nearly 20 percent of the city’s red-light cameras right under Big Brother’s nose.
They allegedly drove around town in a pickup truck with a cherry-picker to dismantle 22 of the high-end Nikons from their street poles.
The devices are used to identify red-light-running drivers, who then are issued tickets by mail.
The suspects peddled an estimated $88,000 worth of goods to a camera resale shop for $300 each to feed their heroin habits.
The alleged perps — Anthony Cintorrino, 45, and 29-year-old Tara LaBurt, both of Brooklyn — swiped the traffic cameras at intersections in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens between June 24 and this past Sunday.
Cintorrino was held in lieu of $8,000 bond; LaBurt was held in lieu of $3,000 bond.
On Sunday morning, an employee of a hardware store on Coney Island Avenue at Dorchester Road in Brooklyn told The NY Post that two people matching the descriptions of the suspects pulled up in a truck and took something from the camera box.
The couple claimed to work for Mulvihill ICS, a Staten Island company in charge of maintaining the cameras for the city Department of Transportation. “Then they ran away,” the employee said.
Cintorrino previously did subcontracting work as a camera installer for Mulvihill ICS, the company said.
Cops nabbed LaBurt and Cintorrino on Monday in Manhattan after finding 13 of the stolen cameras at a reseller and tracing them.
Three other stolen cameras were found at their residences, and cops expect soon to recover the other six that were swiped.
A DOT spokesman said, “We replaced the stolen cameras within 48 hours of being detected. We visit each site daily, so we knew within a day when they were missing.”
(Source: NY Post)
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8 Responses
Were they also planning on blackmailing the recorded red-light jumpers?
“We replaced the stolen cameras within 48 hours of being detected.” Must be a worthwhile investment for the city such that they stand to lose more than $88,000 should 48 hours pass without the use of these cameras.
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More power to those guys. I hate those cameras.
Shame they were caught, the cameras are not for safety but for residual income for the city. I highly doubt that they visit those sites daily, they’re just trying to prevent it from happening again.
way to go! I think i’m gonna drive around brooklyn with a yellow school bus and nab a dozen “METER MAIDS” of the streets!
By “nab” you don’t mean physical harm. YWN does not advocate violence, do we now?
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This reminds me of the Avraham Avinu medresh (the one where he destroys all the idols, then puts the axe in the hands of one of the idols): if the cameras couldn’t protect themselves, how should they make us feel safe?
The city does not visit the sites everyday because a few places that have red light cameras in New York have been missing for the last 4 months. Locations that I know of had missing cameras for at least the last four months.
The city probably was wodnering why the revenue is down and nobody going through red lights anymore and they fianlly put two and two together!