CALIFORNIA COMPUTERS AND COMPUTER EQUIPMENT STOLEN FROM BUSINESS Loyal Subscriber Site

Police arrested two men and a woman last Sunday who had been stealing ...

... from the Acquisitions Office at 1900 Marina Boulevard, a business that deals in commercial office furniture and recycles electronic waste.

“People who steal electronic waste usually sell it for money or drugs,” said Lt. Tom Overton of the San Leandro police. In this case, he was right.

San Leandro police responded to a commercial burglary alarm at the Acquisions Office shortly after 11 a.m. A motion sensor had been activated.

On their arrival, police found four laptops, four computer memory boards, two monitors, and a cell phone stacked up on each other outside the business. A man was seen running towards the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot. He was apprehended and identified as Christopher Gemignani, 24, of San Leandro.

A perimeter was set up around the business. Gemignani’s girlfriend, Dominique Kirk, 21, of San Lorenzo, arrived shortly after to explain her part in the burglary. She also incriminated San Leandro resident Aaron Turney, 28, of taking part in the burglary.

According to Kirk and a tearful Gemignani, the two had broken into the Acquisions Office ten times in the previous two months.

They had stolen recyclable materials, about $1,000 worth, and had used the money to buy methamphetamines. Turney, they claimed, had been stealing electronic items for a year.

The two were arrested for burglary.

At 1 p.m. police arrived at a house on Bermuda Drive owned by Turney’s parents. After being contacted through a bathroom window, Turney voluntarily exited the house. He gave permission for police to search the garage and bedrooms.

Police found a large amount of electronic waste that was stolen from the Acquisitions Office. They arrested Turney for burglary and took him to jail.

“Everything Bay Alarm told us to do, we did,” said Cindy Borgstrom, co-owner of the Acquisitions Office. “It made us paranoid. But even now, all the burglars are not caught.”

For some time Borgstrom was upset at Bay Alarm and felt they weren’t doing their part in protecting the Acquisitions Office, but she claims the company is paying more attention now.

The Acquisitions Office has lost broken DVD players, radios, and other electronic waste to burglars.

Recently, $25,000 of aluminum framework was stolen, probably to be sold for less. But employees of the company have also lost personal items.

Two motorcycles belonging to employees have been stolen, as well as aluminum cans that employees were saving for recycling. Borgstrom wishes to note that items with personal information, such as computer hard drives, are kept in a separate place that thieves have not broken into.

“People may worry about their personal information on hard drives and computers,” said Borgstrom. “Those items are safe and are under even heavier security that has not been breached.”