SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - It's jail for a Santa Barbara County Resident who police say stole a laptop from a student at the Fielding Graduate Institute and then tried to sell it on Craigslist.
According to Santa Barbara Police:
"Ari
Benjamin Morguelan, age 33, of unincorporated Santa Barbara, was arrested for
grand theft. Morguelan, a staff member of the Fielding Graduate Institute,
stole a laptop computer belonging to a student and attempted to sell it on
Craigslist.
On
January 15, 2013 at 3:10 p.m., Santa Barbara Police Department Officer Doug Klug
responded to the Doubletree Resort at 633 E. Cabrillo Boulevard to investigate
the theft of a laptop computer approximately three hours earlier. The victim of
the theft is a 28-year old woman from Des Moines, Iowa, who is a Fielding
Graduate Institute student that was attending Institute seminars that were
taking place in several conference rooms at the hotel. Her laptop computer,
valued at $1200.00, was stolen when it was left unattended in a conference room
over the lunch hour.
Doubletree
Resort Security obtained security camera footage of the suspect in the incident
entering the conference room where the theft took place and then exiting with
the computer. A Fielding Graduate Institute executive that assisted with the
investigation viewed the footage and identified the suspect as Morguelan.
Morguelan is a staff member for the Institute's Marketing Department and was
working at the seminars at the Doubletree.
Officer
Klug discovered that Morguelan is a felony probationer with unrestricted search
terms stemming from a theft conviction in Los Angeles County. Officer Klug
contacted Morguelan at the Doubletree and questioned him about the incident.
Morguelan acknowledged being on probation but denied any involvement in the
theft. He even challenged Officer Klug to produce any evidence that implicated
him in the crime. Invoking Morguelan's probationary search terms, Officer Klug
first searched Morguelan's vehicle which was parked at the hotel but did not
find the victim's property. However, upon looking through the contents of
Morguelan's iPhone, Officer Klug found photographs of what appeared to be the
victim's computer taken from inside of Morguelan's car. Additionally, upon
looking at the phone's web browser, Officer Klug discovered that at 1:01 p.m.
Morguelan had created a Craigslist posting, listing the computer sale for
$900.00. Based on the totality of the evidence, Officer Klug arrested Morguelan
for grand theft.
At
6:00 p.m. Sergeant Jill Beecher, Detective Greg Hons, Officer Tyler Larson, and
Reserve Officer Don Dawes went to Morguelan's apartment on 200 Old Mill Road and
conducted a probation search. Officer Larson subsequently found the stolen
computer inside of the bedroom closet. The computer was later returned to the
victim.
Morguelan
was booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on the aforementioned charge with a
bail amount of $20,000.00."
