NEW YORK COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM SCHOOLSThieves target schools under constructionThieves target schools under construction

By RANDI WEINER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: November 27, 2004)


Recent renovations at Suffern High School came with an unexpected extra cost: more than $123,000 worth of video and camera equipment stolen during the construction.

While Ramapo police have charged an upstate ironworker with theft and have recovered some missing equipment, much of the nonessential gear will not be replaced until insurance claims are settled. The school has replaced items it needs for required courses.

It's not a pleasant position for school administrators, who had padlocked the equipment, used security cameras, hired a construction manager and routinely checked the site.

"We had a horde of people working there that last month to get school open; we had day shifts and second shifts," said Rob MacNaughton, superintendent of Ramapo Central schools. "We had our own people checking on-site, from custodial workers to our own security. They didn't catch anyone doing this nor did we catch anyone on videotape."

Theft from construction sites is not uncommon, police said. In fact, detectives from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut are investigating a rash of big-item thefts from skeleton upscale homes that has plagued the region for nearly a year. Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said thieves had stolen expensive kitchen appliances from homes being built in high-end housing areas almost as soon as they are delivered to construction sites.

"There's certainly a degree of theft that occurs on job sites," he said. "It's not very common, but there is an underground market for the equipment."

Clarkstown and North Rockland school districts recently completed renovation and building projects, and Nanuet is beginning one. Spokesmen from those districts said there had not been any large thefts from their buildings, but it rarely is far from anyone's mind.

The Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services also has done some renovation on school buildings, but most has been interior, so the facilities have remained intact.

"We've been lucky," said Bud Renella, BOCES assistant superintendent for business, whose office processes insurance claims. "Schools are locked up, and they have alarms. Schools have got good things in place to catch people, but the important thing is to prevent it."

Suffern High School's theft was not a crime of opportunity, in which someone saw an unsecured computer and simply picked it up, police said.

The district had locked its video equipment, cameras, computers and data-card readers in classrooms and offices away from the construction site and in cabinets with heavy padlocks. MacNaughton said he was not sure how thieves got into the closed rooms, but a person cut through padlocks and other security gear to pilfer $123,000 worth of equipment in what appeared to be three incidents.
The first theft targeted equipment used by students taking a photography course: 25 single-lens reflex cameras, mostly Minoltas; five digital cameras, mostly Nikons; and memory cards, paper, card readers and other equipment worth about $39,000. The equipment was insured and will be replaced, MacNaughton said, but the claim is pending. The course is still offered using other equipment, so students were not inconvenienced.

And $83,000 worth of equipment appears to have been stolen at a different time, MacNaughton said. Carts used for the high school's laptop computers were looted and 15 Macintosh and 17 Dell computers were taken by forcing the locks on cabinets where they are kept.

The school leased the laptops from the area's BOCES Lower Hudson Regional Informational Center, and they should have been replaced by now, MacNaughton said.

A third theft, which probably was a crime of opportunity, took place while the school's high-tech language lab was under plastic so a wall could be removed and replaced, MacNaughton said. Four Dell computers and a dozen flat-screen monitors were taken from the area.
Lynch said most of the equipment was taken from the school between June 25 and Sept. 3. The department traced some of the equipment to New Windsor, where it said officers recovered about $5,600 of computer equipment near the home of Arthur Malagoli, 31, an ironworker who had been with the construction crews at Suffern High.

Malagoli was charged with third-degree grand larceny and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property — both felonies — and was arraigned before Judge Arnold Edelson in mid-October. He remains free on $1,500 bail.

Police recovered two Dell computers, three flat-screen monitors, two keyboards and computer cables and CD-ROMs. The police are holding the equipment as evidence, Lynch said.

Other districts have taken note. Nanuet schools already have held several meetings on school-site security, and administrators from Clarkstown and North Rockland expressed relief that their projects were not targeted by thieves.

Brian Monahan, assistant superintendent for administration and technology for North Rockland schools, said his district had made security a primary concern while building the new Fieldstone Secondary School on the former Letchworth campus.

Though the building was not an established school with equipment already installed, construction costs included money to hire a full-time security firm to monitor it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said.

"It's a function of the world we live in," Monahan said. "The project was so out in the middle of nowhere that you wouldn't know if something was going on if you didn't have someone there 24 hours."