Andrew Vladeck

UPDATE: Stolen bike recovered in Chinatown Police Sting!

Reunited and it feels so good!

When last I wrote, my bike was stolen, and the thief was selling it on Craigslist.

Here’s a passage from my last post: “In the immortal words of Queen, “I Want to Ride My Bicycle.“  But in the most tragic of ironies, it was stolen by a person FROM Queens (the borough, not the band), and the thief is selling it on Craigslist.“

Well, three weeks after my bike was stolen from in front of my building it is back at home where it belongs.

In brief:

I made a google alert for whenever the words “Giant Halfway Craigslist” would appear on the internet. And sat back an waited.

Google emailed me an alert on Saturday morning. I clicked on it.  A man in Chinatown was selling a bike like mine.  It raised my suspicion becuase they posted a catalog photo.  Very oddly enough, it was the SAME generic photo as the last person who posted an ad for the bike a week earlier.

(aside: in a previous ad, a person offered only a three-word description: “NEED IT GONE”.  That bike, while it looked a lot more like my bike than the bike in the photo the person posted, was, I determined in the end, possibly not my bike.  The police thought it was, based on my photos, the description, and the suspicious ad, but fortunately I balked.  It was probably someone else’s, although it looked so much like mine, it was uncanny!).

Anyway, back to Chinatown. I called the seller and asked if it looked like it did in the photo.  He said it had no fenders or rack, just like mine.  He hesitated when I asked if he was the original owner.  I decided it was worth having a look and told him I’d visit in an hour.  He asked me to meet in outside his housing project in the Lower East Side/Chinatown.

This is going to sound so completely unbelieveable, but I kid you not - this perp is living in THE VLADECK HOUSES, the housing project in the Lower East Side that’s named after my great-grandfather, B. Charney Vladeck (I’m A. Charney Vladeck), a labor leader and City Councilman (he ran with LaGuardia).  The perpetrator walked out of THE VLADECK HOUSES to sell me my own bicycle. How flipping crazy is that? I mean really, I still can hardly believe it. (in another note, it’s really sad that this thief is abusing houses reserved for working families, to run his fencing operation).

My friend “Alice Chen” joined me on this operation.  I saw the bike and it was 1000% clearly mine.  I even took it for a spin.  Every odd detail completely matched up.  I told him I wanted to buy it and told him i was going to get cash, and instead Alice and I walked straight to the 7th Police Precinct. Two good cops said my description of the guy fit someone they were watching. and then they even took me to the corner where they thought he’d be, and my bike was right there locked outside Chang Wang Restaurant.   They brought the man out of restaurant and encouraged him to give me back the bike of spend the holiday weekend in jail, and asked me to not press charges for possession of stolen property in exchange for a warning him. i think he well knew the bike was hot (he had told me he was the original owner, but changed his story to say he bought it from the thief), but i don’t think he was the one that stole it. Though right before I checked out my bike, he sold another bike to another customer - so he’s moving plenty of bikes.  He said he bought it from the first person to post it on craigslist three weeks ago, who I had also called at the time (a Jason/Jayson/Alex from Queens).  Anyway, The police will keep their eyes open and hopefully they’ll investigate the contact in Queens.

Now, I’ve just made what could be a VERY LONG story short.  The whole saga was fascinating.   But for the sake of this blog, I’ll leave it at that.  And in anycase, I’m rocking my trusty old steed!   Thank you officers Ducret and Newberry, and “Alice Chen” for getting my back!

YEEE HAAAAW!

Posted on 09/07/10 at 10:11AM | Filed under: bicyclebikeblogstolenthief | 1 Comments