IOWA CHEAP STOLEN COMPUTER LEADS TO ARREST The Hawk Eye

Corner computer buy nets theft charge

By JOHN MANGALONZO

jmangalonzo@thehawkeye.com

Buying a computer from a corner street vendor may cost very little compared to department store prices, but it can also cost jail or even prison time.

Just ask 27-year-old Malik Sekousahdi Buchanan.

Instead of enjoying hours of fun on the Internet with a laptop computer, Buchanan finds himself charged with second-degree theft, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

He has pleaded not guilty on the charge and is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 12.

His legal woes began Oct. 1 when an unidentified person on a street corner sold him a $1,000 laptop for $250, a deal he said was too hard to resist. That laptop was reportedstolen from a home burglary a week earlier in the 800 block of White Street.

What the burglar probably did not know was that the laptop was equipped with a tracking device that gives its location when the computer is hooked up and a user goes online.

On Oct. 5, detectives received information from the tracking company that the stolen laptop had been turned on and hooked to a wireless Internet connection.

Investigators, armed with a subpoena, were given an address where the computer might be at 521 S. Sixth St.

Residents of the home, upon questioning from detectives, said they didn't have any knowledge of a stolen computer, but did mention they were having problems with a neighbor tapping into their wireless Internet.

The residents told police they had seen a heavy-set black man, later identified as Buchanan, using a laptop computer on the porch of 510 S. Sixth St.