Five iPads stolen from Palm Crest Elementary recovered in Long Beach
La Cañada Unified officials announced Tuesday five of 39 iPads stolen from Palm Crest Elementary School last month have been recovered by sheriff’s deputies, who’ve made one arrest in what could be part of a larger theft ring.
The devices were located last week in the city of Long Beach, LCUSD Tech Director Jamie Lewsadder confirmed Tuesday. They were found in the possession of a woman who purchased them, not necessarily from the four suspects who illegally entered the Palm Crest computer lab in the early morning hours of July 21, but more likely from a middle man.
“Apparently, this one person bought all of them,” Lewsadder said. “We were thinking maybe Craigslist; we had all kinds of ideas, but [the sheriff’s department] wouldn’t share that with us.”
The recovered units were found by investigating detectives with the help of software the district had installed to monitor the use of the school iPads and transmit classroom apps for instructional use, Chief Business and Operations Officer Mark Evans said Tuesday at the regular meeting of the La Cañada Unified school board.
“A lot of it was the way they set up the iPads initially, so that they were able to track them and monitor them to figure out where they were, and (then) shooting that information to the sheriffs,” Evans told the board. “It actually may have provided some aid to law enforcement to come to a larger operation.”
While the name of the school district, engraved on each of the tablets, had been scratched off the devices, the identifying serial numbers remained intact along with the school software and apps that had been loaded into the iPads before they were stolen, officials reported.
Det. Roger Bert, who’s leading the investigation into the thefts, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. But Lewsadder said the recovery comes as great news in a case that was, at one point, thought to be a lost cause.
“They did a great job setting up the case, and now hopefully something’s going to come from it,” she said.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
