This was surely because no money was taken. But the thief was not after cash. What he stole was something a real bank robber would not even notice on the way to the teller’s window, but was, to him, of value.
Those little rugs inside the front door.
The police would later create a list of six bank branches that were victims. That wasn’t even close.
“Thirty-seven incidents,” said Melissa Shuffield, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, the thief’s preferred bank.
It is unclear how much time elapsed before each rug was noticed missing. Probably not until the first rainy day. Perhaps the branch manager called someone in a supply room for a new rug or two, and that person noticed he had received a lot of similar calls lately. Somebody took a look at the surveillance footage.
The first known theft took place on March 4 in the middle of the night at a Madison Avenue bank branch in Midtown. The thief took one rug, but came back six days later, at midday, for another.
He worked all over Manhattan, from the Upper West Side to way down near the Staten Island Ferry. He did not seem to fear crowds, hitting a branch across the street from Radio City Music Hall just before 10 p.m. on April 12, and twice stealing rugs from a Chase branch on Broadway that faces the steps of City Hall. He stole six rugs on five different visits to a branch on East 79th Street.
When the thief needed a debit card to buzz into a bank after hours, he used the same one, over and over. The police traced it to a wallet stolen from a woman’s purse near Pennsylvania Station in February. The Chase security officers set up an alert for when the card was next used to open a door.
On May 25, shortly before 9 a.m., a Chase security officer called 911 to report a rug theft moments after it happened, on Broadway near Wall Street. A police officer saw a man walking up Broadway carrying a rug, and arrested him. By day’s end, he was charged with six rug thefts.
He is William Footman, 55, and after his arrest, he became ill and was transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward. It was there that he met me on Thursday, slouched in a wheelchair pushed by a correction officer. He was far thinner than he was in a photo taken when he was released from prison three years ago.
He had sold crack to an undercover officer in 2001, and had been in and out of prison and jail since the 1990s. This week, he was recovering from an infection following shoulder surgery. He rubbed his stubbled face and answered questions.
“I didn’t do it,” he said.
But then he clarified. He did not steal a rug the morning he was arrested. It was a rug from the company where he said he worked in the Bronx, Imperial Carpet.
He did not steal any of the rugs on the list dating back to March, he said. “I wasn’t even in town on some of those dates,” he said. Besides, he said, he got free rugs from his job. He said he had worked there on and off since the 1970s to support his family. “I have 15 daughters,” he said. “They’re grown. Now it’s like I’ve got 15 mothers.”
He was out of work for a spell. That was a year ago. So, he said, he stole rugs. From banks.
“Maybe seven,” he said. “All over the city.” Always at night, he said. He was never caught.
What did he do with the rugs?
“I sell them to bodegas,” he said. “Their floors get wet.” He got $ 30 and higher per rug, he said. It was unclear on Friday what the rugs were worth.
The police said he confessed, but Mr. Footman said that was not true. Corroborating his story proved difficult. A man who answered the phone at Imperial Carpet in the Bronx said he had never heard of him. And Mr. Footman declined to name any of his 15 daughters or their mother, his wife.
Then, his story told, and his arm giving him some pain, he said, “I’m good,” and asked the officer to wheel him, over the bare, cold floor, back to bed.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 25, 2013
An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the given name of a JPMorgan Chase spokeswoman. It is Melissa, not Melisa, Shuffield.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
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