Boston University Police Department officials identified and arrested a 24-year-old Allston resident Wednesday in relation to a series of laptop thefts at Mugar Memorial Library.
BUPD officers tracked the man, whom officials identified as Jesse Ritson, through a GPS device installed onto one of the laptops he stole, said BU spokesman Colin Riley.
“There was a laptop that was stolen that had a tracking device on it that led us to a location where we were able to identify the individual, along with the location,” Riley said.
Since Sept. 30, four incidences of laptop theft have been reported from Mugar, most recently on Nov. 26. BUPD officials began considering the possibility of a single suspect when video surveillance revealed the same person exiting the library during reported times of theft.
Ritson is being charged with the theft of two of the stolen laptops, Riley said. There is currently not enough evidence to prove that he is the responsible for the other thefts.
“We’ll only say he’s charged with two [thefts], and we’ll see if we can connect him to more,” Riley said. “There’s a possibility that he’s connected to the others as well.”
Once BUPD officials matched a name to the suspect, Ritson was arrested and held in custody, Riley said.
Ritson was then arraigned in Roxbury District Court Thursday morning, where he pled not guilty to all charges held against him, said a Clerk Magistrate’s Office official. He will have a pre-trial hearing in January.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
