|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Rice Thresher
Phone:
|
by Liora Danan and Elizabeth Jardina Thresher editorial staff
Padua and Byer were arrested and booked into Harris County Jail on charges of theft that night. They were released Tuesday after each posting $10,000 bond. University Police Chief Bill Taylor said he suspects the subjects have stolen about $60,000 of property over the past three years. The students had also been previously arrested Sept. 18 and charged with burglary of a computer display from the Humanities Building. Taylor said Padua and Byer also have admitted involvement in the theft of six projection systems, each worth about $7,200. University police officers saw both Padua and Byer's vehicles outside the Safeguard self-storage facility at 7701 Main Street around 7 p.m. Sept. 28. Taylor said both students were removing stolen property from storage. This property included the iMac stolen from Wiess College last March, the DVD player missing from Sid Richardson College, two lamps that appeared to be from Baker Hall, two leather chairs and a couch from Dell Butcher Hall and two laptop computers. The storage unit was rented under the name of Brown College senior Khalil "Charlie" Ghandour on Sept. 19, the day after Padua and Byer were first arrested. Ghandour, who is on the track team along with Byer, said he never participated in any thefts but that he rented the storage unit because Padua and Byer are his friends. "They told me they'd put it in storage and take it back to Rice, and that they'd pay me back for the unit," Ghandour said. "It was a mistake. It was wrong, but I helped them based on the fact that they were my friends and out of loyalty. I didn't know how serious it was, how long they'd been doing it." Ghandour said he has not been contacted about any university charges and has not been charged with any crime. Later on the evening of Sept. 28, police searched Padua and Byer's apartment, with their permission, where they found more university property. Padua and Byer voluntarily turned over other items from their apartment to the police, including two audio/video control centers, two large speakers, two CD players, a stereo-cassette deck, a piece of luggage and a camera. Taylor said he believes the items all belong to people from one residential college. "We're very satisfied that we've recovered a large amount of property," Taylor said. "We're going to be clearing probably 20 or so - maybe even more - cases ... better yet we've eliminated the victimization of some of our current students in possibility of loss of other property." Taylor said there are eight reports of stolen property with serial numbers that match recovered property. There are also 11 cases in which police think the property matches reports but don't have serial numbers. About $20,000 dollars worth of property has been recovered so far, Taylor said. Taylor said the earliest report that matches recovered property is from January of 1998, during the winter break of Padua and Byer's freshman year. Padua and Byer have offered to help retrieve items not recovered during the arrest. "They have admitted to some things that we have not yet recovered," Taylor said. "In fact they have offered to assist us in trying to recover those." Included in this group are a number of projectors taken from Sewall Hall over the past two years. "I suspect that these guys are responsible for close to 50 percent of the property losses we've experienced on this campus in the last three years," Taylor said. Padua and Byer are not allowed on campus as a condition of their release on bail. They are also no longer enrolled at Rice. The date for the presentation of the case before the grand jury has not yet been set, but Byer, Padua and Christian "Ash" Martinez (Sid '00) will appear in court Oct. 17 unless their case is presented for the grand jury before that date. Martinez was arrested in the Sept. 18 incident with Padua and Byer, but he was not present at the storage facility and has not been additionally charged. Jay Jackson, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case, said because the different thefts were committed on different dates, the charges could be separated and tried on separate occasions. If each theft is tried separately, Jackson said, the punishments can be "stacked," served consecutively. However, if the state tries the offenses at the same time, the sentences can be carried out simultaneously. Jackson said the prosecution has not yet decided whether to try the charges together or separately. Padua said he and Byer were told by their lawyers not to talk to the Thresher. Padua's lawyer, Chip Lewis, spoke for his client. "We are deeply saddened by the event that transpired," Lewis said. "We are doing everything we can to rectify the situation as best as possible." Lewis said his client has not entered a plea. Taylor said police were able to catch Padua and Byer at the storage locker thanks to a combination of information given by the community and by keeping tabs on the students' actions. "We were, to some extent, kind of monitoring their comings and goings and looking to see what was happening," Taylor said. "It was a very low-key operation. It was mostly a combination of intelligence and kind of looking in the right places at the right time." Taylor said the police had a good idea where the subjects were keeping the property. "When you have the two suspect vehicles sitting out front - duh - it doesn't take a whole lot of putting everything together to figure out that something's going on," Taylor said. Taylor said Padua and Byer have cooperated with the police. "Once I think they realized that they were beyond the point where anyone was going to believe it was a jack anymore - it was pretty hard once they were in possession of property off-campus ... they did agree to assist in trying to recover other property, some of which was sold," Taylor said. Taylor said he doesn't think student theft is a widespread problem. "Predominantly our students that are here are not people that are inclined to go around taking other people's property or taking university property and converting it to their own use," Taylor said. Padua and Byer said in an article in last week's Thresher that they were taking the monitor from the Humanities Building as part of a jack on Hanszen College. They also said the property was never intended to leave campus. A jack is a prank traditionally played by one college on another. The subjects also said they had never stolen property from Rice. "Theft was never an issue," Padua said in an interview two days before his second arrest. "We were never going to steal anything. The property was never going to leave Rice." Olivia Allison and Eric Carlson contributed to this report.
- back - |
|||
|
Search the Thresher pages:
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of: The Rice Thresher, Rice University MS-524, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA. The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@listserv.rice.edu |
