telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (03/13/89)
Two phony repairmen wearing stolen Illinois Bell hardhats and carrying around stolen repairman tools have demonstrated that ripping off payphones is not small change. Arrested here in Chicago last week were George W. Parratt, 47, of Sauk Village, IL and Arthur P. Hopkinson, 40, of Hickory Hills, IL; two south suburbs of Chicago. The two men, posing as Illinois Bell repairmen, and driving a white and blue van disguised to look like an Illinois Bell truck, have stolen many thousands of dollars from pay telephones all over Chicago. Their average take was about $200 per phone -- and they have hit some phones two or three times. Just the cost of repairing the phones damaged in the past year cost more than $50,000 said IBT spokesman Tony Abel. These two fellows were making a full time living looting pay phones, although Mr. Abel did not have the final total of the amount looted immediatly available when we discussed the case. Abel said Illinois Bell employees spotted the phony van on two separate days and notified the security department of Bell. Security representatives were able to trace the license plate on the van, and they found it parked in Parratt's driveway. The investigators secretly followed the van and watched Parratt and Hopkinson loot two pay phones in Calumet City, Illinois, and two in Hammond, Indiana; a community on the stateline served by Illinois Bell. When the two men drove back across the stateline into Calumet City, and started breaking into another payphone, the investigators arrested them. Cook County sheriff's Lt. Thomas Oulette, called to the scene, said the two had $120 in change and $650 in stolen tools from Illinois Bell at the time of their arrest. He said they were able to break into a coin box, dump it and get away in less than three minutes. "It was a pretty good scam," said Oulette, who noted that the investigators from Illinois Bell told him they believed the company had been hit by the pair for about $35,000 in the nine months the company was specifically aware of them without knowing who they were. Parratt and Hopkinson were released on bond, and are scheduled to appear in Circuit Court (Markham, Illinois branch) on April 17. Patrick Townson