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Story about poker game doesn’t hold up for man charged with burglary
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Having police see you carrying a 50-inch television down a major thoroughfare at 3 a.m. on a Saturday won’t necessarily get you arrested — unless it’s a short time after one is reported stolen.
Jeremy A. Courtwright, 31, of Logan Avenue and Lakewood, Ohio, pleaded not guilty Monday in Warren Municipal Court to felony burglary and misdemeanor receiving stolen property. Bond was set at $7,500.
Police say he took a 50-inch television from a home on Willard Avenue Northeast about 3 a.m. while the occupants of the home were in another room.
Their dog started barking, so one of the homeowners looked in the spare room, saw the $850 television missing and called police at 3:05 a.m.
Officers interviewed the couple and took information for a report, then headed west on Market Street toward the police station to write their report when they noticed Courtwright beside the road about six blocks east of Willard, wearing dark clothing and carrying a large television.
The officers asked Courtwright about the television, and he said he won it playing poker on Genesee Avenue.
But Courtwright changed his story when asked some questions, saying the poker game was on Belvedere, but he didn’t know the name of the TV’s former owner because he met him in a bar.
Officers then checked Courtwright’s pockets and found a GPS and a charger used in a car, as well as an XM radio and remote. He admitted he didn’t own a car and was carrying the items to sell them.
He also had a woman’s ring in his pocket and a large amount of change.
Ironically, two other Warren police officers had seen Courtwright walking on East Market Street a short time before he was arrested.
They were near Kenmore Avenue, one block east of Willard, transporting a prisoner to the Trumbull County Jail when they saw Courtwright on the sidewalk with the television balanced on his head, his hands on each side of it.
Those officers asked him about the television, and he said he had just won it playing poker on Belvedere Avenue. Officers left him and continued to the jail.
Later, police contacted the Willard Avenue residents and took Courtwright and the television to their house, where the resident showed police the television was hers because it automatically connected to her locked Wi-Fi system.
The homeowner also identified the television by telling them to look for a sticker on the bottom that they had never removed from the store.
By checking the “home” address on the GPS, police identified a man on Meadowbrook Avenue, who said the GPS had been stolen from his car, which had been at a house on Adelaide Avenue Southeast for a while that evening. He said change also had been taken from the car.