Property theft in another state?
8I’m having trouble finding info online and I’m not a Reddit user, so I figured I’d ask here in case any of you might have tips, advice, or experience. I temporarily loaned something of mine to a person I once trusted, and now he refuses to return it, outright stating he is choosing to keep it. I handed the item to him in person while he was visiting me here in Florida, and he took the item with him when he returned home to Long Island, New York. (This was part of the loan agreement). This person has become verbally abusive and I suspect he may try to destroy the item, which is worth a fair amount of money and would be difficult to replace if lost. What are my options here, to get the item returned to me? I can’t seem to find out how to file a police report online with the Suffolk County PD (which has jurisdiction where this guy lives). I have tried getting a couple local friends to trick him into handing the item over to them, but these attempts failed. Any help is appreciated.
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If you want it back, maybe you should bite the bullet financially and buy it back from this asshole
I know it’s wrong, but you can’t stop him from destroying it and if you take legal action, and this is a spiteful sort of person, then the person might be motivated to destroy it just out of meanness
Or give it away or sell it and then put it forever beyond your reach that way.
This is a delicate sort of issue and sometimes these don’t turn out well I’ve lost a few things I valued that I lent with the assurance I would get them back from, and the people were people I would’ve trusted with my life
And then the items got kept, and I got lied to
Eventually, although it was painful, I just walked away from it all, but that’s me and all of these circumstances are highly individual, including the personalities involved
If you know someone who will keep your confidences private, who knows the other person well, you might have some conversations with this person if you know more than one person and you’re absolutely sure that they won’t clue the other party in you might have serious conversations because you might be able to jointly come up with a workable plan that might motivate the person to return it
This depends on your personality personality of your confidants and the personality of the asshole
And also it depends on how events role and how every single person takes everything that happens
Very unpredictable
Another thing you might do is talk to a lawyer and see if you have legal remedies that are actually likely to work
If you care about the value of it or about the money to replace, then you might simply take legal action, because in worst case, you could sue and put a lien on that person’s property especially if they own a house and then eventually you get your value back Even if they never paid you and unsatisfied judgment doesn’t look great on somebody’s credit report and they also can’t sell the house without paying you back if you put a lien on their house after winning a judgment
You could also put a lien on their business, if they own a business, or any other asset of that nature that can be tracked
If you care about the item itself, then the person kind of has a barrel because practically they can get rid of it give it away, destroy it whatever before you can take action or while you are taking action
So in that case, maybe the best thing if you really want to get back to figure out how much it’s gonna cost you to bribe them
Unfortunately, some people are just really awful
In any case, I would talk this through with people, you absolutely trust who have superb judgment, and are very good at handling difficult situations with people
Preferably if they know that person they can be of more use
There’s no way to guarantee this comes out well, unless all you want is the value of the item
And even then you’ll never get anything back if the person who ran off with it is essentially judgment proof, because they’re poor, or their assets are all hidden
I’m sorry you’re going through it
Maybe
https://suffolkpd.org/Forms-and-Reports
has something that can get you started
or you can get some advice at https://empirejustice.org/issuesareas/crime-victims/
I tried several potentials on the first ref., but they seemed to be having server problems at the moment. Maybe those will correct by business hours.
If the value of the item is in excess of the limit for use of small claims court, then you can file a civil suit for recovery of it or repayment for it. An attorney would have to be involved, for obvious reasons. And consulting an attorney is, at this point, your first step. It’s possible that if you cannot actually prove ownership of the item, the local jurisdiction may not be sympathetic to your claim. But an attorney would be able to advise you on both the likelihood and the cost of recovery. There is also the possibility that you could file charges of theft by conversion, but my understanding is that many local jurisdictions pretty much ignore such complaints. Once again, an attorney could tell you what your chances look like.
If you go the legal route, if you have anything in writing where he states he is not going to give it back, you can use that against him. Save every email and text, especially if you can trick him into explicitly saying the item is yours and he won’t give it back.
@OnionSoup I’ve got screenshots proving he’s claiming to keep it. However, he has been going around lying and saying I told him he could keep it…problematic.
Fly there. Pay an off duty cop to accompany you to his house. Demand it back. Last ditch effort kind of thing. Good luck and people sure do suck. There’s always shaming him on judge Judy too. Sue him to get it back.
@milstarr Thinking about seeing if I can get a local (to the thief) close friend to show up with a cop.
@milstarr @PooltoyWolf You need to have filed a theft report with the local cops before you can get a cop to do that. Since the cops tend to not to try to enforce things like this anyway, because, what the hell, people like us don’t matter, you can probably file that report without him ever finding out it’s been made. But talk to an attorney first.
I thought I should add an update to this thread: mercifully, the stolen property has been returned to me unharmed! Turns out a good friend of mine who is local to the thief was able to reason with him and get him to hand it over, and my friend then shipped the item back to me. For those curious, it was an inflatable wolf (no surprise for me, I guess). Not Fenris, don’t worry, he’s fine!
@PooltoyWolf Wow! I’m glad it worked out for you. How brazen of the guy.
@Kyeh It really sucks when someone you trust betrays that trust. I’m just glad the little blow up wolf is safe.
@PooltoyWolf Yeah, it’s really sad that he’d do that to you. Which wolf was it?
@Kyeh One of my Fun Size Fenris wolves!
@PooltoyWolf Awfully cute!
Was this one of the batch you had produced?
@Kyeh Yes! This particular wolf is one I’m loaning out to friends to let them meet him, which until just recently was on hold, for obvious reasons. >.>
@PooltoyWolf Well, I hope all the other friends respect your generosity in letting them borrow him.
@Kyeh Me too. Next in line is a very close, longtime friend.
@Kyeh @PooltoyWolf Yeah, he’s a real cutie!
@Kyeh @mossygreen Aw, thank you! I was trying my best to balance bringing back the original design in an affordable size, without outright ripping off the original.
I love a happy ending!
I presumed it wasn’t inflatable that was being held hostage or being being stolen
I’m glad it turned out well
I’m sorry that you have to find out that somebody wants trusted and cared about turned out to be just a big lying thieving jerk
It’s unfortunate, dude. Try contacting Suffolk County Police by using this link: https://suffolkpd.org/Contact-Us. Thoughtful advice: next time, be wary of blind faith. Personally, I make an effort to be selective about who I trust and use https://recordspage.org/ to check the background of anyone who seems questionable.
Happily, the problem has been solved via the intercession of a third party. It’s cool.