Security Guard Receives 50 Hours of Community Service for Theft

The case against Stephen Evans—a former Securitas supervisor who was arraigned on April 7 for stealing electronics from Harvard students—was issued a continuance without a finding in late August.

Evans, who was charged with one count of larceny for allegedly stealing a MacBook Pro laptop valued at $2,000 and an Apple iPad valued at $500, did not plead guilty, but rather admitted to sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilty.

Associate Justice Michele B. Hogan of the Cambridge District Court sentenced Evans to 18 months of administrative probation and 50 hours of community service. Additionally, Evans must stay away from Harvard and stay away from the victims of the larceny.

Evans’ attorney declined to comment on the outcome of this case.

The District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to The Crimson’s request for comment.

“The HUPD does not comment about the disposition of court cases,” wrote Harvard University Police Department spokesperson Steven G. Catalano in an email to The Crimson. “But to clarify no one from the HUPD was consulted regarding the disposition of the Evans case.”

On Oct. 11, two undergraduates left their backpacks unattended in room B04 in the basement of Holworthy Hall and left to eat at 12 a.m. When they returned at 2:15 a.m., they found that their laptops had been stolen from inside their backpacks, according to the incident report.

On Dec. 12, Harvard University Police Department officers responded to a report of stolen property from the B-entryway of Kirkland House. A student reported that he noticed his laptop and iPad were missing when he returned to his room that morning. There were no signs of forced entry into either the entryway or the student’s room, the incident report stated.

Using logs of IP addresses and device-specific Media Access Control addresses aggregated by the University, police determined that a stolen laptop was being used at the Securitas guard station near Wigglesworth. Police identified Evans as a possible suspect in the case after examining swipe logs from the Kirkland incident in December.

On Feb. 8, HUPD officers received an email alert that the targeted MAC address had entered the network. They later confronted Evans at his car and found one of the laptops that had been stolen and an iPad.

Evans agreed to be interviewed by HUPD and said that the laptop in his possession was purchased from a man at the T-stop in Harvard Square for $400. He said the iPad was purchased for $150.

But later in the same interview, Evans admitted to stealing the MacBook Pro from a common room in Holworthy Hall. He also said he found the iPad in Kirkland House and “picked it up and just checked it out ... to see how an iPad works.” Evans said that he intended to return the iPad to its owner.

The officers then identified the scratched serial number to match the number to the iPad that was reported stolen from Kirkland House.

By Feb. 21, only two electronics were recovered from the two incidents, in which a total of four items were stolen.

At the end of the same interview, Evans denied knowledge of the other two devices—both MacBook Pro laptops—in the two cases, stating that he did not have an accomplice in the larcenies and that he had not given any of the items to anyone else.

“I did not get greedy like that,” Evans said, according to the incident report. “I did something I was not raised to do but I did not [take the other laptops].”

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.