Yard Burglar to Return To Campus Tonight

The convicted Yard Burglar will be extradited tonight to Cambridge, where he faces trial for more allegations he broke into Harvard dormitories.

For the past two months, Andre K. Stuckey Jr. has been in the custody of California corrections officials following an early December in Los Angeles.

Stuckey's extradition will mark the first time in at least 25 years that the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) has formally returned a suspect to Cambridge from another state.

Stuckey, formerly of Long Beach, Calif., will arrive tonight in police custody on a flight from the state. HUPD officers will meet him at Logan International Airport and transport him to campus police headquarters, where he will be processed and then moved to Cambridge City Jail. The State Police and other law enforcement agencies have also been notified.

In Cambridge on Dec. 1, less than 72 hours after Stuckey was released on probation for committing multiple larcenies in the Yard, HUPD issued a new warrant for his arrest following another break-in at Matthews Hall. In conjunction with MIT and Cambridge police, the department mounted a massive city-wide search for the suspect but couldn't find him.

Four days later, Stuckey was arrested in California, after he was stopped by a University of California-Los Angeles police officer for "suspicious activity" near a UCLA dorm.

UCLA police officials said they were thankful Stuckey was caught before he could begin a crime spree like the one he committed at Harvard.

"If the officer hadn't observed him, he could have caused a lot of problems here at UCLA," Sergeant Phil Baguiao told the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper.

Stuckey, who spent the last two months in the L.A. County Jail, has a long criminal history that includes active warrants for his arrest in four states. In addition, Amtrak police added him to their 'watch list' this fall, after he allegedly used stolen credit cards to travel around the country by rail on multiple occasions.

The suspect's return to Cambridge marks a coup for HUPD, which was angered by his probationary release after he pleaded guilty to five charges in connection with larcenies in the Yard,

"It's really a slap-in-the-face," one officer who asked to remain anonymous said at the time.

The department added extra personnel and increased patrols in an attempt to prevent Stuckey from committing additional crimes.

But with Stuckey back in Cambridge, HUPD spokesperson Peggy A. McNamara said the department is hopeful he will receive a stronger punishment when he appears later on this month in Middlesex District Court.