A man arrested for car burglary in San Francisco was caught on video by a YouTuber who set up an elaborate prank, but an investigation found that he had been recently been released by a judge on previous charges related to car burglary.
YouTuber and former NASA engineer Mark Rober baited car burglars by setting up cameras on a car that had a rigged backpack inside. When burglars cracked the car window and stole the backpack, it would later emit a foul odor and announce a countdown to scare the robbers.
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Rober then took things a step farther and obtained help from KGO-TV reporter Dan Noyes, who looked into identifying the alleged burglars by looking up the license plates to the cars they drove to commit the burglaries. While he found that most used stolen license plates to conceal their identities, one man drove his car with his regular license plate, and they were able to identify him.
30-year-old Charvel Augustine of San Francisco is recorded on video smashing the window to one of Rober’s bait cars and grabbing a backpack from inside. Another video from inside the backpack shows him open up and peer inside before abandoning it after it deploys the foul odor and starts counting down.
“Fart spray cannon fired!” reads a message automatically texted from the bag.
Augustine is then caught on video allegedly stealing a second backpack from another one of Rober’s bait cars an hour later.
When Noyes looked into Augustine’s past, he found that the man had been released days previously by a judge over charges related to car burglary. When he failed to appear, a judge issued a $35,000 bench warrant. He had been charged with second-degree burglary of vehicle and possession of burglar tools.
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Despite this, the judge released him on his own reconnaissance.
“Looks like it would be easily settle-able,” said Judge Loretta Giorgi on Oct. 9 when she dropped the bench warrant.
Three days later, Augustine was caught on video by Rober’s bait cars and also videotaped by police allegedly burglarizing two other cars.
Frank Noto of Stop Crime SF told KGO that this incident is not unusual in the courts.
“That’s just crazy,” Noto said. “The judges are showing poor judgment there. They’re saying this criminal is not going to commit a crime, at least not pending trial. But they’re dead wrong.”
Noyes noted that Augustine appeared to wear designer jeans to court that were very similar to those he wore while allegedly committing the car burglaries.
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Rober has more than 4.6 billion views on his various videos on YouTube.
* Original Article:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/san-francisco-car-burglar-prank
