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The home of the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s iconic co-founder, became one of Palo Alto’s latest burglary targets last month when a man allegedly made off with computers and jewelry from the Waverley Street residence, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
Police confirmed Tuesday morning that they had made an arrest in a burglary that occurred at the home in Old Palo Alto, where Jobs’ family lives. The home is currently undergoing renovation, including roof work, and authorities believe no one was home at the time of the incident.
The burglary occurred on July 17, said Santa Clara County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Scott Tsui. It was reported on July 20, according to the Palo Alto Police Department report log.
Tsui said the suspect is Kariem McFarlin, 35, of Alameda. McFarlin is alleged to have taken more than $60,000 worth of items, which included computers and jewelry. Tsui said it did not appear that home was targeted because of its association with one of Silicon Valley’s leading pioneers.
“As far as we know, it seems like it was random,” Tsui said.
McFarlin was arraigned on Aug. 7 and is next scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 20, at which time he is expected to enter a plea. He is facing charges of burglary and selling of stolen property, Tsui said. The maximum sentence he can receive is seven years and eight months.
He is currently being held on a $500,000 bail.
The incident is the latest in a long string of burglaries that has hit Palo Alto and other Bay Area cities in recent months. By early May, the city had reported 81 residential burglaries in the first four months of the year, compared to 34 in 2010 and 43 in 2011. The trend seemed to have eased off in April, when the number of reported burglaries dropped to seven. However, three more Palo Alto home burglaries were reported this past weekend, according to a police report.
The troubling trend had prompted the police department to launch a “Lock It or Lose It!” education campaign aimed at educating residents on ways to prevent burglaries and detect suspicious behavior.
The department had also added more manpower, including plain-clothes officers, to its burglary-suppression operation, and assigned two day-shift officers to work with burglary detectives specifically on stopping this trend. Police encourage residents to keep their home and car doors and windows locked and to lock their yard gates.
it would seem that common sense would apply in this. are there not burglar alarms being used in these homes? these are mansions and estates as palo alto and the bay area are very different now than in earlier eras. when there exists a huge gap between the ultra-rich and the masses of lower-class people, occurences such as this take place