AppleInsider Staff
Kariem McFarlin, the burglar who stole late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs' wallet and multiple computers during a house break-in last year, has been sentenced to serve seven years in a California prison.
In addition to the wares taken from Jobs' house, McFarlin hid worth hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stolen items from multiple San Francisco Bay Area burglaries at his house and a storage locker, reports Macworld.
The 35-year old Alameda man was arrested in July 2012 after he broke into Jobs' Palo Alto, Calif., home and took over $60,000 worth of computers and personal items, including two pieces of Tiffany & Co. jewelry valued at over $28,000 each. Included in the list of stolen property were two iMacs, three iPads, three iPods, one Apple TV and other valuables.
Officers from the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) were led to McFarlin's location when he turned on one of the pilfered iPads, which subsequently connected to iTunes and allowed Apple security to track the device.
The maximum prison sentence McFarlin faced was seven years and eight months, which included a one-year enhancement for "excessive taking of property." He did not dispute the charges and maintained his motives were driven by desperation.
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10 Comments
…which included a one-year enhancement for "excessive taking of property."
"Look, kid, of all that stuff you swiped, if you had just taken… one piece of jewelry and only two of the iPads, we could have let you get away with it, but both pieces and three iPads? That's excessive."
If I don't expressly allow it of the person, taking so much as the pocket lint from my shorts is "excessive taking of property"!
How desperate can he be? He had hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goodies. Imagine if he had sold any of them, then he would not have been desperate, right? Seems his only skill was stealing stuff. He wasn't smart enough to figure out how to convert stuff into money.
Why can't apple help their customers recover stolen devices? It would protect them from being victims of muggings and break-ins. Their customers did pay a premium for that apple product.
How desperate can he be? He had hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goodies. Imagine if he had sold any of them, then he would not have been desperate, right?
Seems his only skill was stealing stuff. He wasn't smart enough to figure out how to convert stuff into money.
If you spent some time reading the links in the article, you would see he sold a $30k necklace to an out of state dealer.
He was in no rush to sell all the stuff because he learned to get by on very little money.
Why can't apple help their customers recover stolen devices?
They do.
He was in no rush to sell all the stuff because he learned to get by on very little money.
Oh, a frugal burglar. Spectacular. That's always nice to see.
"Hey, Ted, sorry I stole that Toyota from you, but hey, I'm still livin' off the money I got from pawning it! Invested some in a stock that shot up and I put my kid through college on it; nice house in the suburbs, nothin' fancy, nothin' extravagant…"