Theft at Rancho Obi-Wan

weasel said:

Good to hear he's been rumbled and is looking at jail time.

What I don't get is HOW he thought he would get away with it. By the sounds of it he nicked some fairly rare and hard to find items. Those are easy to trace as shown by how quickly they worked out it was him. ****ing dim on his part. He was always gonna get rumbled. He may have made decent money in the short term but the end game was always gonna be jail so why bother?

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I suspect desperation or then again stupidity

Mini99 said:

weasel said:

Good to hear he's been rumbled and is looking at jail time.

What I don't get is HOW he thought he would get away with it. By the sounds of it he nicked some fairly rare and hard to find items. Those are easy to trace as shown by how quickly they worked out it was him. ****ing dim on his part. He was always gonna get rumbled. He may have made decent money in the short term but the end game was always gonna be jail so why bother?

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I suspect desperation or then again stupidity

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Agreed. He doesn't sound like the brightest lightsaber in the armoury.

Carl is certainly not a stupid guy. That smells of mental illness or desperation to me.

Here is the list of items still missing!!

How would you get some of those Lego sets out without anyone noticing :?:
MOCs I can sort of understand, just don't see how this happened with the size of the Lego boxes.

Sounds like he was trusted to be their on his own to me, I would have though they would have CCTV footage?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/05/star-wars-biggest-collector-steve-sansweet-theft

Mini99 said:

How would you get some of those Lego sets out without anyone noticing :?:
MOCs I can sort of understand, just don't see how this happened with the size of the Lego boxes.

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I was about to type the exact same thing... how these where taken without anyone noticing is a complete mystery.. surely they would have left a big gap on a shelf too.

Sounds like the guy tried his luck with a few bits.. then got brave and went for larger sized items..

By the looks of the other items they could be hard to track down. A fair amount of those mocs are out there so unless graded with a ref number they will probably never be found.

Hope the guy gets a severe sentence.

The thing that always puzzled me about his collection is that he has everything on these cheap steel garage shelves wide open. Anyone could walk by a grab something as he has it open for tours.

This stuff was taken from storage so not noticed for a good 18 months and only then when offered for sale, ie not a glaring gap on the shelves.

So 100% of the items listed have been traced to the buyers . I wonder what is the US laws, does the buyer (not knowing the buying stolen goods) have to return the item and the loose out on the cost or would the owner of the item claim through his insurance? I would be pretty pissed if I have to return the item and no way for me to have a refund! Or if paid by PayPal will be they cover this type of fraud?? :?:

The buyers would have to give the items back without being reimbursed what they paid. I'm not sure if they can get the insurance company to cover the cost or not.

apack7229 said:

The buyers would have to give the items back without being reimbursed what they paid. I'm not sure if they can get the insurance company to cover the cost or not.

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Agreed, but the owner (Steve) has to prove they are his items to start with. IF his insurance company pays him for his loss, the items then become the property of the insurance company. Well that's how it works here- if my car is stolen and I get paid by the insurance company- I latter find the car in my 'friends' garage- the car is taken by the police and sold at auction on behalf of the insurance company. The only way I get it back is to buy it at auction or make an arrangement with the insurance company.

http://www.cbs46.com/clip/13408491/felony-charges-for-marietta-man-in-theft-of-worlds-largest-privately-owned-star-wars-collection

You really can't beat the US for their news coverage :lol:

I love how it starts and ends with a load of modern figures and the fact that Carl dressed up as the imperial grass from Star Wars, you just could write this any better.

Joking aside though it is bad news all round about this happening to people who only wanted to share their collections with people. there's going to be a huge trust issue from now on I'm sure and all it does is hurt the fans, very shameful.

Ian

Yes, it'll be a real shame but totally understandable if some items were no longer available for viewing to the general public because of this idiot

Here is an update on the story. Carl Cunningham plead guilty to felony grand theft and faces up to 4 years in prison. Sentencing schedule for September 7th.

https://patch.com/california/petaluma/man-pleads-guilty-stealing-star-wars-collectibles-petaluma-museum-owner?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=weather&utm_campaign=alert