Police: CD Thief Is Escaped Convict

The man arrested by Harvard police Monday for breaking into students' dorms and stealing their CDs is an escaped convict from Wisconsin with an extensive criminal record, authorities said yesterday.

Thomas Jackson, 23, who was arraigned yesterday morning in Cambridge District Court, gave police several aliases in an attempt to cover up his long arrest record and escape status.

Jackson was held on $1,000 cash bond yesterday as investigators pieced together the suspect's past arrest record.

Jill Reilly, spokesperson for the Middlesex Country district Attorney's office, said Jackson has at least four outstanding criminal warrants in Massachusetts for crimes ranging from drug possession to assault and battery.

Reilly and Harvard's Criminal Investigations Division also said yesterday that Jackson is an escaped convict wanted by the Wisconsin Corrections Department.

Because of a computer outage, local authorities were not able to say what Jackson had been convicted of or where he had escaped from. Corrections officials in Wisconsin could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The Harvard officers who arrested Jackson Monday night said yesterday that he gave police several fake names, including "John Smith." But when detectives ran Jackson's fingerprints through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, "he sure lit up the board," a Harvard detective investigating the case said.

The detective speculated that Jackson assaulted and attempted to flee arresting Harvard officer Richard Vitale because the suspect knew he would have to face his criminal past.

"He [Jackson] had a lot of very serious stuff hanging over his head and he didn't want to get grabbed," he said.

Sgt. Kathleen Stanford added that Harvard police would not have been able to arrest Jackson if they had not received several valuable phone tips from students.

"He's been up to this for quite some time," Stanford said. "So it was really good that the students were cautious and called the police."

Officer Vitale arrested Jackson Monday night after he tackled and maced the suspect, who fled police after being spotted by students in Adams House.

Reilly said Jackson will be back in court on September 28 to face charges of breaking and entering in the night time, larceny, trespassing and assaulting a police officer.