Old-school jewel thief arrested in Brevard<\/FONT><\/a><\/p>\nBY DAVID OVALLE
\nTHE MIAMI HERALD<\/p>\n
Condo Joe, slick jewel thief, longtime Miami-Dade police nemesis, bald senior citizen, is back behind bars.<\/p>\n
Joseph Carbone, 60, was arrested late Wednesday, this time in Palm Bay for a break-in across Alligator Alley in Collier County.<\/p>\n
Deputies say a husband and wife surprised him just after 1 p.m. Nov. 14 as he rifled through a nightstand inside their condo. Carbone escaped and zoomed off in a black Ford Crown Victoria — but not before the couple jotted down his license plate.<\/p>\n
”I’ve spent 30 years chasing this guy and he just doesn’t want to quit,” said retired Miami-Dade Detective Michael Crowley.<\/p>\n
Crowley and Miami-Dade Sgt. Thomas ”Bulldog” Blake spent decades tracking the old-breed lock-pick thief who targeted high-rise condos and high-end jewelry.<\/p>\n
In the mid-1970s, Blake drew national headlines for his pursuit of Carbone, who bragged about wearing expensive jewelry while committing heists, stayed at swank hotels and always valet parked.<\/p>\n
For 18 months, Blake tracked Carbone, tailing him while off duty — even distributing fliers to police along the East Coast while on vacation with his family.<\/p>\n
His diligence paid off. Alerted to Carbone’s presence, Virginia authorities arrested Carbone with stolen jewelry and a set of lock picks on him.<\/p>\n
Blake helped arrest Carbone two more times, in 1984 and 1990.<\/p>\n
Carbone was unabashed about his career choice.<\/p>\n
”I’m a lock-pick until the day I die. They’ll have to pry the lock-picks from my cold, dead fingers,” Carbone once told Blake.<\/p>\n
After a 19-month stint in state prison, Carbone was released on probation in February 2004 but disappeared. He was arrested within a month at the Best Western Floridian Hotel in Cutler Ridge.<\/p>\n
Found in his room: some 15 lock picks, jewelry, watches — and copies of old Miami Herald articles chronicling his exploits.<\/p>\n
He was released from prison a month later and finished his probation in October 2005. Though he slipped off the radar, Crowley and Blake suspected he had returned to his old ways.<\/p>\n
Carbone was again arrested this Oct. 3 in Indian River County.<\/p>\n
He was found, deputies say, at 10:25 a.m. trying to open a house door, his hand draped with a white handkerchief. A deputy later pulled over Carbone, driving a Ford Fusion rented in Miami.<\/p>\n
Sweaty and nervous, he allowed the deputy to search his brown fanny pack. Inside: small screw drivers, a small pry tool, two white handkerchiefs and a “a large amount of lock picking tools.”<\/p>\n
Inside the trunk, deputies found diamond earrings in a box, two pairs of binoculars, a window punch tool, more handkerchiefs — and 12 baseball caps.<\/p>\n
”I guess they cover up the baldness,” Crowley quipped.<\/p>\n
Carbone was charged with attempted burglary, possession of burglary tools and loitering and prowling. He was released on bond.<\/p>\n
Then in November in Collier County, a husband and wife returning to their two-story condo in a gated community saw Carbone through the bedroom window. He was rifling through the nightstand.<\/p>\n
”She ran in yelling and chasing him out of the house,” said Collier County Lt. Chad Parker.<\/p>\n
Carbone dropped the jewelry and hopped into the Crown Victoria but the couple wrote down the tag number.<\/p>\n
That proved his undoing, deputies said: The license plate was registered to him.<\/p>\n
Deputies consulted with Blake, Crowley, and Miami-Dade career criminal Detective John Laughlin.<\/p>\n
Crowley immediately called a former co-worker at Miami police: William Berger, now the police chief of Palm Bay — where Carbone has been living.<\/p>\n
By Wednesday night, the old jewel thief was arrested at his exclusive home by Palm Bay crime suppression detectives.<\/p>\n
Even Berger was surprised at Carbone’s stubborn refusal to quit thieving.<\/p>\n
”You don’t see these type of guys around anymore,” Berger said.
\n—
\nWeb Extra: ‘Condo Joe’ arrested wearing pajamas
\nHe was wearing pj’s
\nPalm Bay police arrested career criminal \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cCondo\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Joe Carbone while he was wearing pajamas and relaxing at home Wednesday night, spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Palm Bay Police Chief William Berger received a tip from his former Miami-Dade police colleagues that Carbone was staying at 253 Wishing Well Circle, less than a mile west of DeGroodt Road.<\/p>\n
Police don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t know if Carbone owned the house or was staying with friends. Carbone doesn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t own a house in Brevard County, according to property records.<\/p>\n
About six officers, including the crime suppression unit, arrested Carbone without incident, on a warrant of Collier County, Martinez said.<\/p>\n
\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThey didn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t give him an opportunity to resist,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
He was taken to Brevard County Jail in Sharpes but later transported to Collier County.<\/p>\n
\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cIf convicted for the charges on this warrant he could be looking at 40 years,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Martinez added.<\/p>\n
– Megan Downs, FLORIDA TODAY
\n(thanks to Froggy for the link<\/a> to the original article)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who said burglars never pick locks ?!? ‘I’m a lock-pick until the day I die. They’ll have to pry the lock-picks from my cold, dead fingers,’ Joseph Carbone once said. Old-school jewel thief arrested in Brevard BY DAVID OVALLE THE MIAMI HERALD Condo Joe, slick jewel thief, longtime Miami-Dade police nemesis, bald senior citizen, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackbag.toool.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}