Police say the suspects targeted more than 70 Nissan Maximas in the last four months

Sunday, February 02, 2003

By RYAN LILLIS
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE


Two guys with a bright idea have been busted for leaving Nissan Maxima owners in the dark, police said.

The pair stole headlights out of Maximas from every corner of Staten Island in a four-month spree that ended early Friday morning with their arrest, cops said. When it was over, the two had taken the lights from over 70 cars, according to police.

Chris Ziegler, 20, of Legion Place in Arrochar and his buddy, Arthur Tkach, 18, of Brooklyn, were charged with first-degree auto stripping, grand larceny and 12 counts each of criminal mischief, authorities said.

They went after Maximas built in either 2002 or 2003 because the cars use high-intensity headlights, cops said. Those lights are worth about $2,000 a pair and are popular with drivers who want to flash-up their cars.

In this case, many of the stolen headlights were probably resold on the street, police said. The inside of the bulb -- called the ignitor -- is the most valuable part of the headlight.

The headlights can be ripped out using little more than a screwdriver.

The crime pattern began in early October and hit a peak the night of Oct. 13 when six cars parked in six different neighborhoods were vandalized, police said. The number of victims kept rising, week by week; at least two car owners were hit more than once, authorities said.

Then came Thursday night.

That night, the headlights were taken from a Maxima parked on Adams Avenue in Midland Beach. Residents on the block caught a look at the getaway car and called the cops.

Detectives Robert Gilboy and Gregory Silverman with the Staten Island Auto Squad questioned the witnesses. They had also gotten a tip that someone connected to the crime wave lived on either Legion Place or Glover Street in Great Kills.

Gilboy and Silverman went to both streets but all was quiet. They were heading back from Glover Street when a call came in that another car -- this one on Seth Court on Grymes Hill -- had been hit. By this time, it was 12:30 a.m. on Friday.

The detectives took a detour and headed over to Legion Place. They sat on the block in their unmarked car until a 2000 gold Chevrolet Malibu ripped around the corner and pulled into a driveway, police said.

Gilboy and Silverman approached the driver and his passenger. It was, police said, Ziegler and Tkach. In the car with them was a screwdriver, some gloves and parts from Maxima headlights, police said.

The pair was arrested and taken to the 122nd Precinct stationhouse in New Dorp. If convicted on the auto stripping charge they each face up to four years behind bars.

Ryan Lillis covers police, fire and criminal court issues for the Advance. He may be reached at lillis@siadvance.com.

 

i am very glad they catch this (*^*^%&$*&^%*@! but we need more counter ops!

Playero

 

At Last - JUSTICE BABY!!!

I say hang 'em high! I fortunately wasn't a victim - but I cringe every time I read a post about it!

At least the cops are recognizing the theft - score one for the Maxima owners!

 

Throw the book at 'em...

 

70 Maximas ..

What I don't understand,when they put it on Ebay and say the Tabs are broken. How do people just buy them and not question where they came from?? Unless some sick fools just don't care if they are stolen or not

 

fu.ck the book. How about headlights.

 

Well, those crack detectives could just do a search on e-bay.

I'm glad they were caught, but it took 70 pairs to do it? Great detective work!

 

GOOD! But they'll get off because of the above... police didn't have reasonable justification for a search. It's dumb, but even though they caught the right guys, a good lawyer will probably find a way to say the cops had no reason to approach that car so they shouldn't have found the stuff... of course, this is assuming they get a good lawyer.

 

Police officers do not need any justification to merely approach a subject. In this case, however, they had plenty. They had a description of a car and they had information on where the suspects might live. Then a fresh crime is reported and the police respond to where they believe the subjects might return. Then the car they are looking for shows up where they expected it to be.

What I want to know is who these headlights are being sold to. I wouldn't be suprised if this case goes federal.

 

make sure it's a very very VERY large book too.

 

Now, if we could only get this kind of action in New Jersey . . .

 

I'm glad they finally caught those SOBs. What are the cops going to do with the 70 stolen pairs of HID's?

 

Yeah, with spikes and explosives... definately explosives

 

Woo hooo!!! Life is good!

Pretty scary that two guys jacked 70 cars though; that's a lot of damage for just two idiots.

Regarding the eBay purchases; do you think all of these buyers know the significance of the broken tabs? Some, sure - but does your average rice jockey understand broken tabs = stolen Maxima headlights...?

 

And that it hits them squarely in the face.

 

screw the book, give them 5 minutes with us Maxima owners!

 

They are only facing 4 years? Thats the maximum? They'll never do that, and even if they did, thats it for over 100K worth of lights and car damage?

 

they don't have all 70 headlights..they have been sold or gotten rid of

 

Considering these two had JUST stolen the headlights when they were stopped, they were probably in plain view, i doubt they had time to stash everything in the trunk...and anything in plain view can get you pulled over

 

If our police paid more attention to this crime instead of sitting in office drinking coffee all day...
why can't the track down the buyers (mostly junk yards) ?

 

I can't believe they could only face up to four years in prison. They need closer to 20 years a piece.

 

"Finally some sort of justice"...But then again there are more people just like them out there doing these thefts. But I'm glad they got caught out. "*********** S"...."Yeah they should get 20 years for each set they stole:"laugh: "LIFE without parole "...

 

It's about time and a great day for Max owners! We can only hope they get some quality time with Bubba

 

Sweet. Although these probably weren't the punks that ripped mine off, (Union, NJ) I'm so glad to hear about this. 4 years behind bars would be great. Don't drop the soap fellas. Peaches and cream.

 

hell yeah, baby. my thoughts exactly.

 

GUYS think about it this way. In 4 years it will be 2007, how many of you 2k2-2k3 owners are still gonna be driving around your maximas in 2007? They could move on to another car, which would suck, but they will still be behind, and they will have this on their record meaning if it starts again, these 2 will be the first sought after.

 

And it hurts really, really, really bad.

 

i hope those ****ers get *** raped in jail

 

These 2 a--holes were from Staten Island - only 5 minutes from where I work, just over the bridge. 2 cars got hit in the parking lot last month, most likely it was them. Several dealers in the area were hit also.

 

I'm surprised they're only facing a MAX of 4 yrs! I mean they're claimed to have stolen 70 pairs, and each pair retails for about a G, so that's 70Gs worth of property loss/theft. I'd think they would face a little more time (keep in mind that the max sentence is rarely carried out, unless the perpetrator has a long, previous criminal history).

But anyhow, this is GREAT news, and if more of these b!tches are caught and the media publishes these things, perhaps it will deter some of them from attempting these thefts.

 

It's about damn time we hear something like this in the news. This crap is so common and widespread around here it's scaring me away from getting 2K2 headlights. I know there are more severe crimes being committed and all, but they should set up some type of task force for this since this is affecting so many people. I guess it's either not worth it to them or they can't afford it