Mesa Cops Bustin' Thieves Craigslist Style -- Two Days in a Row

tcritic.com

​As we learned last month, Craigslist is a terrible place to go if you want to have sex with dogs. Now we're learning Craigslist is also a terrible place to sell stuff you steal from people in Mesa.

On Wednesday, a Mesa woman was perusing Craigslist when she found her autographed jersey of basketball legend Michael Jordan, which had been stolen from her home along with $3,500 worth of electronics on March 18.

The thieves conveniently posted some pictures of the jersey in their Craigslist ad, making the woman know for sure it was the one stolen out of her house.

The woman called the cops, and when 18-year-old Darcy Two Roads Gorman (yep, that's his middle name) thought he was getting $1,800 for the jacked Jordan jersey, his buyers turned out to be Mesa cops, who weren't interested in buying the jersey at all.

Instead, cops arrested Gorman, as they say he and a juvenile buddy admitted to going through a window to burglarize the woman's house.

The very next day, Mesa cops were out Craigslist "shopping" again, this time catching 23-year-old Enrique Cazares allegedly trying to sell off some guitars stolen from a Mesa home in February.

There were six guitars and an amplifier stolen from the home, and after noticing someone happened to be selling three of the same guitars on Craigslist, the victim realized those were probably his guitars.

Police say Cazares tried to sell one of the guitars to undercover cops that night for $1,350, but since the serial number from one guitar matched the one provided by the actual owner, and a chip on another guitar matched the owner's description, the story didn't go over too well for Cazares.

Cazares told police that he had gotten one guitar from Germany and the others from his brother, but the story didn't check out with the cops, and he was booked on a charge of trafficking stolen property.

Mesa police Detective Steve Berry tells New Times that while he isn't exactly sure how common it is that the cops recover people's stolen stuff from Craigslist, it was easier this week because of the uniqueness of the loot.

"I couldn't tell you the serial number to my T.V. -- I have no idea," he says. "(The chip in the guitar) that's something unique."