Bungling (suspected) burglars busted with stolen stuff

A Carlsbad man walked down the street to see why the cop car was there; he then saw his stolen possessions inside a car that was being detained, according to testimony at a hearing today, April 22.

John Laubach said he noticed the police car at the other end of Naples Court, where he has lived with his family for 24 years, and he went to investigate that Wednesday evening, January 22.

Just two days before, Laubach said he came home from work to find his house burglarized. “The upstairs had been ransacked,” he told a judge.

It was about 7 p.m. three months ago when Carlsbad police responded to a “suspicious persons” call: neighbors reported seeing men “looking over a fence.”

Officer Cody Green stopped a black Ford Focus and was questioning the persons inside when Laubach walked up and told the officer that was his gym bag — with his name on it — inside the strangers’ car. The resident also recognized several computers and his coin collection, plus other items he had listed in a report made to police just days earlier.

Carlsbad police sergeant Greg White said that he interviewed one of the suspects from the car, Andrew James Kaas, 24, later at headquarters.

The sergeant said that Kaas denied burglarizing any of the homes in that area, which had suffered a recent spree of break-ins between January 15 and 20.

Police were able to return several computers to persons who had not bothered to report their theft after investigators determined their ownership.

Kaas allegedly told the sergeant that he and his companion “had just been getting high together” but eventually Kaas admitted they did trade stolen goods for drugs, the sergeant told a judge. A syringe and burnt spoon were found in the suspects’ car, and the sergeant characterized both men as “heroin addicts.”

Superior court judge Robert Kearney ordered Kaas to face one felony charge of possessing stolen goods. He pleaded not guilty, is currently held in lieu of $40,000 bail, and will next be in court May 6.