Scam Didn’t Compute, Hermosa Officers Say

Hermosa Beach police say an alleged computer thief they arrested last week picked the wrong victim--them.

Samuel Thompson, 38, whom police officials hired last December to sell about $7,000 worth of used computer equipment for them, faces a preliminary hearing Dec. 4 on a single count of grand theft for allegedly failing to give back the hardware after his sales contract expired in March.

Thompson, who remains in County Jail in lieu of $17,000 bail, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Friday. He also may face charges on a grand theft warrant out of Beverly Hills for allegedly stealing a computer from a matchmaking service.

A clerk in the Torrance public defender’s office said Thompson’s case has not yet been assigned to an attorney.

Hermosa Beach Police Chief Steve Wisniewski said Thompson told him he was a regional manager for Machine Brokers Assn., a company he said specialized in computer sales.

“It came across as a good, legitimate business deal until things began to go wrong,” Wisniewski said.

Last December, Wisniewski said, the department paid Thompson a $195 sales fee and turned over a collection of used computers, printers and other hardware that South Bay Autohaus had donated to the department. Thompson estimated that the equipment would fetch between $3,500 and $7,000.

In February, Thompson told Wisniewski that he had sold “a few of the smaller pieces” but that a slow market was holding up sale of the larger items.

Wisniewski said he checked with Thompson periodically for the next few months and ultimately decided to reclaim the hardware for sale at auction.

But when he called Thompson in October, he discovered that both telephone numbers for the company had been disconnected. Landlords at the two locations said Thompson had been evicted for failing to pay his rent.

Wisniewski filed a criminal complaint against Thompson on Oct. 24, citing himself as the victim.

“I figure this kind of thing happens daily in other walks of life, but you wouldn’t think that a guy would try it with a police department,” Wisniewski said. “If I were him, I would assume that a police department would come looking for me and find me. And we sure did.”

Sgt. Mark Wright said angry former neighbors, who told investigators that Thompson also had bilked them of money, helped police track him to a new business address on Cochran Street in Los Angeles.

Although there were a number of computers in that office, they were not the ones belonging to the Hermosa Beach Police Department.

“The guy dresses in a nice suit and he smiles just right and he’s personable,” Wright said. “He gets people to trust him, and then he takes their confidence and uses it against them. It even happens to the police.”