Greater Long Island coverage is funded in part by Toresco & Simonelli, a boutique injury and family law firm in West Islip. They fight for their clients. Click here to get in touch.
He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice — and apparently, he’s stolen an e-bike in the middle of the night.
Suffolk County Police are on the hunt for a burly, bearded bandit who brazenly snatched a $760 Hiboy e-bike from a Centereach driveway just after midnight on Sept. 3.
The shirtless suspect, captured on surveillance footage sporting a white beard and light blue stocking cap with a telltale long tail, has social media buzzing with comparisons to a certain jolly gift-giver.
Though this “Santa” skipped the sleigh. His getaway mode of transportation was a black sedan, police said.
“Wow he really does eat a lot of cookies in December!” quipped one Facebook user, commenting on the alert posted by the police on the SCPD Alerts page.
Another jokester, noting the man’s imposing physical stature, said, “I’m going to have to say that Bad Santa can have what he wants.”
Other commenters branched off from Santa comparisons, suggesting the man had “climbed down a beanstalk” or looked like internet legend Techno Viking (see below).
Still, there’s nothing jolly about the pre-dawn theft. The man swiped the electric bike, valued at $760, from outside the front of a home on Lyndon Lane at 12:56 a.m. and loaded it into a black sedan before fleeing the scene.
Police confirmed on Thursday that the man remains at large. Authorities are asking anyone with information about the seemingly naughty suspect to contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers at 1.800.220.TIPS.
Tips can also be submitted via the P3 Tips mobile app or online at www.P3Tips.com. Police said all information will be kept confidential, and that there’s a cash reward being offered for information leading to an arrest.
Top images: (from left to right) GLI file photo, surveillance image via SCPD, and YouTube still.
