Theater manager Keith Arsenault’s iPhone 3GS was stolen from the control room during a music recital last May.
The room serves as his makeshift office during performances, complete with old props and an escape shaft leading to either the roof or parts unknown. The door outside the control room was propped open to keep late arrivals from entering with a distracting “bang,” which he demonstrated.
During intermission, Arsenault left his iPhone and its charger for around five minutes. When he returned, both were gone. Dean Emery Alford and most of the music faculty were sitting just in front of the control room, but none of them saw the suspect. Arsenault reported it to campus security and AT&T did a “remote wipe,” which deleted all personal information from the phone.
Weeks before the release of the then-new iPhone 4, Arsenault decided to replace his older model phone before leaving on a ten day trip to supervise the final construction and opening of a theater for a theme park in Alabama. He played a large role in designing the theater, so missing it for a phone wasn’t an option.
AT&T gave him a deal on his replacement and Arsenault was on his way to Birmingham. He forgot about it. Then, in a hospital with his father in critical condition, Arsenault received a phone call from New York. He answered, as he’s made a lot of friends there through his work.
It was an AT&T store, and they had a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer that wanted to speak with the owner of the account. As told by Arsenault, Anthony Rosado of the NYPD stopped a man for jumping a turnstile in a Manhattan subway. Rosado found a Hillsborough Community College ID along with an iPhone on the suspect and started asking questions.
Here, the man made a series of errors. He said he’d forgotten his phone number. He said he hadn’t bought any minutes. The contact list was empty. Rosado took the man to a nearby AT&T store. The clerk said he’d need a subpoena to turn over a client’s personal information. The officer asked to speak with a manager, who folded and made the call to Arsenault. “I’m now waiting for them to send [the phone] back to me. Supposedly it’s in great condition, it doesn’t have a cracked screen or anything.”
When it was stolen the iPhone was in a premium “Otterbox” case, which was no longer on the phone by the time Rosado recovered it. Arsenault achieved some minor celebrity for the theft. “I did a posting on my Facebook page: “Many thanks to Officer Rosado of the NYPD for recovering my iPhone yada yada yada. A friend of mine is an editor for the St. Pete Times, he saw that posting and he immediately sent me an email ‘Hey,
that’s a great story, we don’t usually have stories with happy endings. Do you find if I send a reporter to talk to you?”
When he does receive his phone from New York, Arsenault plans to sell it, along with its replacement, and upgrade to the iPhone 4.