Associated Students Inc. Treasurer Michael Quibuyen’s laptop and ASI Chief of Staff Deborah Rowe’s wallet were stolen from the ASI Student Government Office on July 18 while staff members were out for lunch.
The police were able to get a picture of the suspect when he used one of Rowe’s credit cards at a local 7-Eleven. The suspect is described as a black male, possibly 18-24 years old, 6’0″ with corn rows and wearing black prescription glasses. University Police Lt. Scot Willey said the suspect used a tool to break into the office.
In regards to recent activity in the ASI office, Quibuyen said, “Usually we have meetings, but this past month just hasn’t been as hectic.”
No one else was in the office at the time aside from Quibuyen and Rowe.
“I left my wallet in my purse,” said Rowe, who also said there was nothing of importance in the wallet with the exception of her credit cards and IDs.
Quibuyen said he isn’t worried about a leak of information due to the stolen computer.
“I’m not too concerned about any of the information that was on [the laptop],” he said. “It’s all personal stuff. I have a bunch of photos that I probably won’t get back, but that’s pretty much it. I use it for a lot of photo editing. It’s my basic hobby.”
The stolen MacBook Pro was bought last April and cost approximately $2,000.
“The way that the system is set up in the university is very specific,” Willey said. “The laptop is entered into a nationwide stolen property system and if it pings up anywhere, it is [displayed as] stolen property. We can call and say we’re getting a hit on this computer that’s being used [on campus] right now and they can pretty much tell us which wall jack [the suspect] is using.”
Willey urges faculty members and students to know where their belongings are at all times. He also highly recommends installing tracking programs as an extra measure to help simplify the process of locating a stolen laptop.
“Laptop theft through the years has always been a continuous problem,” Willey said. “There is a few every month at the least.”
More laptops are being returned to their owners because of programs such as Prey, Hidden and LoJack. Prey is a free tracking program that supports both Mac and PC while Hidden is a paid application specifically for Mac. LoJack has various yearly plans to choose from and supports both PC and Mac.
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