Two oddballs have been busted for swiping nearly 20 percent of the city's red-light cameras right under Big Brother's nose. They allegedly drove around town in a pickup truck with a cherry-picker to dismantle 22 of the high-end Nikons from their street poles. The devices are used to identify red-light-running drivers, who then are issued tickets by mail. The suspects peddled an estimated $88,000 worth of goods to a camera resale shop for $300 each to feed their heroin habits.
The alleged perps — Anthony Cintorrino, 45, and 29-year-old Tara LaBurt, both of Brooklyn — swiped the traffic cameras at intersections in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens between June 24 and this past Sunday. Cintorrino was held in lieu of $8,000 bond; LaBurt was held in lieu of $3,000 bond. On Sunday morning, an employee of a hardware store on Coney Island Avenue at Dorchester Road in Brooklyn told The NY Post that two people matching the descriptions of the suspects pulled up in a truck and took something from the camera box.
The couple claimed to work for Mulvihill ICS, a Staten Island company in charge of maintaining the cameras for the city Department of Transportation. "Then they ran away," the employee said. Cintorrino previously did subcontracting work as a camera installer for Mulvihill ICS, the company said. Cops nabbed LaBurt and Cintorrino on Monday in Manhattan after finding 13 of the stolen cameras at a reseller and tracing them.
Three other stolen cameras were found at their residences, and cops expect soon to recover the other six that were swiped. A DOT spokesman said, "We replaced the stolen cameras within 48 hours of being detected. We visit each site daily, so we knew within a day when they were missing."
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