Man Charged In Theft Of Parking Meter Boxes

UPDATED October 27, 2010 - 2:20 p.m.

CHICAGO (STMW/WBBM) - A 38-year-old Northwest Side man was ordered held Wednesday in lieu of $200,000 bond after being charged with stealing four pay-and-display parking meters from Chicago city streets.

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Jeffrey Kaput, of 5517 W. Cortez St., is charged with four felony counts of theft in connection with the theft of the LAZ parking meters, police said. Kaput was also charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Kaput was ordered held on $200,000 bond on Wednesday and a preliminary hearing was set for Nov. 1, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokesman Andy Conklin said.

Between Oct. 6 and Oct. 12, Kaput rammed into the meters with his van, then put them in his vehicle, according to Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

Each of the LAZ parking meters weighs about 200 pounds and costs $6,100, Scaduto said.

Scaduto said some of the stolen devices had coins in them, but she didn't know how much money was taken.

Kaput was pulled over late Monday at 5518 W. Augusta Blvd. by an Area 5 robbery mission team because the vehicle he was driving had allegedly been used in a criminal damage to a parking meter incident, according to a police report.
Officers also had video evidence of the vehicle being used by a suspect who dumped one of the meters, the report said.

After they pulled him over, officers saw Kaput allegedly drop something to the ground and when they asked him what it, he replied that he had dropped his crack pipe, according to the report. The pipe was recovered and Kaput was arrested at 11:45 p.m.

"There have been approximately 20 [boxes] taken, of which four have been recovered," said Police Department spokesman Roderick Drew in an e-mailed response to the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month. All of the thefts have happened since Sept. 17.

The thefts have occurred citywide, with nearly half in Area 5, Drew said in the e-mail. It is not known how much may have been taken from the stolen pay boxes, he said.

The theft of the meters is still being investigated by Area 4 and Area 5 detectives.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2010. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. WBBM contributed to this report.)