It may be understandable that when a criminal pulls off a great heist, he may want to brag to his fellow criminals. On TV and in the movies, the audience often roots for the underdog, even if he or she is the criminal. So what about the guy that (almost) pulls off a great heist, but doesn’t even know it?
According to a blog post on Techcrunch.com Kariem McFarlin, was arrested in connection to a burglary at the family home of the late Steve Jobs that took place on July 17. While McFarlin, 35, might have thought that the $60,000 worth of property and computers were quite the haul, he apparently didn’t know that he was stealing from the late Apple legend’s residence. Although according to the Associated Press article, he did walk away with Jobs’ wallet and driver’s license.
The home is apparently undergoing some renovations and surrounded by a chain link fence. Perhaps McFarlin assumed the house was empty. Either way the Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney, Tom Flattery, believes it was a totally random choice of target. McFarlin was arrested later in the month after he connected to the internet using one of the computers he stole.
Many of the people who commented on the blog posting were upset that the Jobs’ street address was printed in the post and that a Google map popped up to pinpoint the location. While his address may have been easily found by internet search, why encourage people to poke around? One commenter thought that the police had the wrong suspect in custody – “Kariem’s innocent, we all know it was Samsung.”