Hot Police Action

Entrapment in New York City; if you find something, you go to jail. Really!

The NYPD revealed Wednesday its Operation Lucky Bag stings have snared nearly 300 people - many of whom had no rap sheet before they fell for the ruse.

Since the start of the year, there have been 100 arrests as a result of the decoy operations, in which an undercover officer "drops" a wallet, iPod or cell phone in a subway station and cops pounce after it's picked up.

Police said 58 of those busted had rap sheets, while 42 had clean records.

There was a similar breakdown in 2006, when 188 were arrested. The NYPD said 101 had prior arrests while 87 did not.

Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne defended the program, saying since it began, subway grand larcenies - theft of more than $1,000 - have been slashed by half.

"Operation Lucky Bag has something to do with it," he said.

He said straphangers are arrested if it's obvious they had no intention of returning the property - for instance, if they pocket the cash in the wallet.

For almost every person busted, there was a good Samaritan who actively tried to return the wallet to the undercover who dropped it moments before or to a nearby uniformed officer.

Browne said people who picked up the wallet but did not remove the cash were stopped, frisked and checked for outstanding warrants and released.

Photographer Carlos Alayo - whose story appeared in the Daily News Wednesday - fell into that category when he found a wallet at Grand Central last week.

He surrendered the billfold to cops who grabbed him but was still frisked and asked for ID for a background check.

Browne said there was $21 in the wallet; the NYPD does not use credit cards, which would raise the charge to grand larceny.

Link.

More from the Times:

At first, an epidemic of absent-mindedness seemed to have broken out.

One purse was found just sitting on a display shelf in the shoe department at Macy’s. Another one turned up downstairs, in Macy’s Cellar. Yet another rested on a chair in a Midtown McDonald’s, left by a woman who had stepped into the restroom.

In fact, all three items had been planted by police officers in plainclothes during the previous six weeks. And the three people who picked them up were arrested, and now face indictment on charges that could land them in state prison.

Nine months ago, a similar police decoy program called Operation Lucky Bag was effectively shut down by prosecutors and judges who were concerned that it was sweeping up the civic-minded alongside those bent on larceny. Shopping bags, backpacks and purses were left around the subway system, then stealthily watched by undercover officers. They arrested anyone who took the items and walked past a police officer in uniform without reporting the discovery.

Now, a new version of the operation has started to catch people in public places outside the subways, and at much higher stakes, Criminal Court records show.

Unlike the initial program, in which the props were worth at most a few hundred dollars, the bags are now salted with real American Express cards, issued under pseudonyms to the Police Department.

Because the theft of a credit card is grand larceny, a Class E felony, those convicted could face sentences of up to four years. The charges in the first round of Operation Lucky Bag were nearly all petty larceny, a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of one year in jail.

OVER the years, decoy operations have proved to be very effective in flushing out criminals lurking in public places. They also have a history of misfires involving innocent people who stumbled into a piece of theater in the routine drama of city life.

When Lucky Bag began in February 2006, among its first 220 arrests were about 100 people who had prior charges and convictions. Police officials said those arrests helped drive down crime in the subways by about 13 percent.

However, more than half of those 220 involved people with no prior criminal record. In dismissing one case, a Brooklyn judge noted that the law gives people 10 days to turn in property they find, and suggested the city had enough real crime for the police to fight without any need to provide fresh temptations. The penal law also does not require that found items be turned over to a police officer. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began to dismiss Lucky Bag charges.

“We spoke with N.Y.P.D.’s legal division and the transit bureau so they would understand the essentials needed for prosecution, because the early arrests were being made on faulty premises,” said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the office. “There must be evidence that the taker did not intend to return the property.”

Sneaky behavior — like trying to hide a found wallet, or slipping money out and leaving a purse behind — could show that the person meant to steal the valuables. Those instructions were added to a prosecutors’ handbook.

In February, Aquarius Cheers, a 31-year-old Manhattan man who said he was on a shopping expedition with his wife, spotted a Verizon shopping bag with a cellphone and iPod inside at the 59th Street station of the No. 1 train.

As he was looking in the bag, a train arrived. Mr. Cheers said he and his wife boarded, rushed past a uniformed officer, bringing along the bag with the intention of looking for a receipt. Undercover officers then grabbed him. After his case was reported by NY1, the prosecutors vacated the charges.

A spokesman for the Police Department took questions yesterday about the revived decoy operations, but did not provide any answers.

So far, lawyers at the Legal Aid Society have identified four pending felony cases arising from the decoys. The police complaints describe suspicious behavior. For instance, after a 50-year-old man picked up the purse left in the Macy’s shoe department, he put it in a shoe box and carried it to the other side of the store, a complaint said. Then he took the wallet out of the purse, put it in his pocket, and left the shoe box and purse behind, according to the police. That case is pending.

“We want to make sure these are not people intending to return wallets or found property,” Ms. Thompson said.

And down in that hotbed, of Bolshevism, Georgia, here are cops helping thieves -- not for entrapment, simply helping them in, you know, holiday spirit, or stupidity, or something....

Normally when you find a ticket on your windshield from a police officer it is not a good thing, but in Conyers a ticket could save you some money.

Officers with the Conyers Police Department will be on foot patrol in the parking lots of major shopping areas in the city over the next couple of weeks. They will place yellow tickets on vehicles with packages or boxes of merchandise that are visible on the seats or floorboards of cars; in other words, vehicles that are easy targets for thieves.

Conyers Police Chief David Cathcart said the yellow ticket program is part of an overall crime prevention program to help remind people to be careful with regard to their Christmas packages.

"If you leave packages in clear view in your car, then you might be providing an opportunity to a thief that can be avoided if you are just a little more careful," said Cathcart. "Even if you put your packages in the car and think you're only going to be in another store for a few minutes, you're still at risk because it only takes a moment for someone to take advantage of a situation."

The CPD has stepped up patrols during the holiday season in the city's shopping areas and increased the number of officers on duty during the evening shopping hours.

"Certainly our goal is to catch the thief; but if we can help create an environment which makes it more difficult for the thief to thrive, then that's a positive for our entire community," the chief said. "We want the citizens to know that we are out in the community and this program not only lets people know officers are patrolling an area, but reminds people to secure their packages."