AUGUST 18--In a law enforcement first, a New York City man was arrested last week in connection with the theft of a Segway, the $5000 self-balancing scooter, The Smoking Gun has learned.
NYPD detectives arrested Eddie Wang, a 24-year-old student, on a felony possession of stolen property charge (a copy of the criminal complaint can be found below). Wang was arrested August 12 outside a Queens Starbucks where he had arranged to meet a Segway expert he had met on the Internet. The expert, who was cooperating with police, had promised to help Wang get the Segway--which was without keys--operational.
The hot Segway was stolen about two months ago on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a theft reported to cops by the scooter's owner. In a TSG interview, Wang said that he bought the Segway for $75 from a man who was pushing, not riding, the scooter on an East Harlem sidewalk.
Wang, a finance major, claimed that he did not know what the Segway was when he bought it, but purchased the item "because I thought it was cool." Not surprisingly, he also claimed, "I didn't know it was stolen." Wang added that the seller claimed to have found the Segway at a construction site, an unlikely explanation that Wang said he did not challenge prior to purchasing the scooter. Nor did he question why it came sans keys.
Wang told TSG that after he later went online and determined that his new purchase was--lo and behold!--a pricey high-tech scooter, he set out to obtain keys, since he planned on using it "for my own recreation, fun." Wang contacted the Segway expert--who also spoke to TSG--and asked for help in starting the machine, which had been reduced to an 83-pound paperweight.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/doc_o_day/doc_o_day.html
NYPD detectives arrested Eddie Wang, a 24-year-old student, on a felony possession of stolen property charge (a copy of the criminal complaint can be found below). Wang was arrested August 12 outside a Queens Starbucks where he had arranged to meet a Segway expert he had met on the Internet. The expert, who was cooperating with police, had promised to help Wang get the Segway--which was without keys--operational.
The hot Segway was stolen about two months ago on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a theft reported to cops by the scooter's owner. In a TSG interview, Wang said that he bought the Segway for $75 from a man who was pushing, not riding, the scooter on an East Harlem sidewalk.
Wang, a finance major, claimed that he did not know what the Segway was when he bought it, but purchased the item "because I thought it was cool." Not surprisingly, he also claimed, "I didn't know it was stolen." Wang added that the seller claimed to have found the Segway at a construction site, an unlikely explanation that Wang said he did not challenge prior to purchasing the scooter. Nor did he question why it came sans keys.
Wang told TSG that after he later went online and determined that his new purchase was--lo and behold!--a pricey high-tech scooter, he set out to obtain keys, since he planned on using it "for my own recreation, fun." Wang contacted the Segway expert--who also spoke to TSG--and asked for help in starting the machine, which had been reduced to an 83-pound paperweight.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/doc_o_day/doc_o_day.html