Thefts include New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island
Spring is in the air. The birds are chirping, the weather is beautiful and apparently cell towers look like trees bearing valuable fruit for those criminals ambitious enough. Three different sets of criminals have been thieving from cell towers in New England recently.
First there’s Paul R. Incognito, 33, and Keith E. Jousset, 33, from Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., caught by Cedar Grove police when attempting to steal equipment from an enclosed cell tower behind a neighborhood Staples. The men were charged with burglary, attempted theft, possession of burglary tools and criminal mischief. These two brilliant masterminds were doing this in the middle of the day and made no attempt to pretend they were doing anything else.
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The next set of jabronis trying to steal from cell towers are Kenneth Wade Maston, 32, of Attleboro, Mass., and Jared Kuffrey, 27, of Wrentham, Mass. The pair was caught stealing copper wires and bars in North Kingstown, R.I. These two at least tried to cover up their crime, but in the most incompetent way possible. They were wearing shirts that read “Electronix Redux” yet said they were from Paramount Communications. The stolen equipment was in the back of a Ford Mustang. How many tower climbers do you know who show up to work on a site in a Mustang? On their persons was a list of cell sites that happened to match the tower sites that had been vandalized and stolen from recently. Police said they generally sounded nervous and unsure when attempting to answer questions.
Police contacted Crown Castle, the owner of the tower, which verified that these two were not authorized to be there. The damage they did to the site was estimated at $30,000. This included cutting dozens of wires and removal of equipment. The damaged property belonged to a number of carriers, including Verizon, T-Mobile US and Metro PCS. Both men have been charged with felony larceny, conspiracy and multiple trespassing charges.
A little farther north in Queens, N.Y., police are still on the lookout for a man who stole copper wiring from a cell tower. The man allegedly took copper grounding wires from the rooftop Sprint cell tower.
Police describe the man as Hispanic, 40 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches, about 200 pounds, wearing blue jeans, black boots, a gray sweatshirt and a black vest.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call 800-577-TIPS.
