CRIME: Meet The Dude That Probably Took Your GPS

INQUIRER: The GPS had been stolen three weeks earlier. That Friday in March, after working 12 hours, Horowitz returned to a Center City garage to find the passenger-side window of his car shattered, Garmin GPS gone, and weekend travel plans dashed. Records indicate the GPS was sold to the pawnshop by a Julio Steven Jackson for $35, three hours after Horowitz parked his car. It wasn’t Jackson’s first sale there, and it would not be his last. Over two weeks, receipts show, Jackson sold seven Garmin GPS devices, all to the same pawnshop. “Are you kidding me?” Horowitz remembered telling Officer Joseph Ferrero during their ride to the pawnshop. There was more. Deeper digging by police found that Jackson had unloaded 18 devices in 24 days, mostly to the same welcoming pawnshop. […] To get his device back, Horowitz had to pay Advanced Money Loan $35, a standard practice that irks crime victims. “Not only am I out of pocket at the cost of having to replace my car window,” said Horowitz, a 61-year-old lawyer who lives in Bucks County, but “I have to repurchase an item that’s mine in the first place. That’s unfair. There is something fundamentally wrong with such a system.” Coughlin agreed. “It stinks for the complainant. They have to basically buy their GPS twice.” MORE