Three men have been charged with stealing and vandalizing controversial license plate readers over the weekend in the west suburbs.
Anthony Pareigis, 34, Jacob Steichmann, 32, and Thomas Yano, 31, face charges of theft and criminal damage to government property, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office said.
Around 1 a.m. Sunday, police discovered two Flock license plate readers had been vandalized and stolen in Lisle and three more had been stolen in an unincorporated area near the village. About an hour later, Lisle police officers spotted two men, dressed in black, wearing masks and gloves, approach a license plate reader.
One man was holding a ladder and another a drill, according to the state’s attorney’s office. Pareigis, of Downers Grove, was taken into custody, but the other man ran off.
Lisle police found a gray 2012 Subaru nearby with its windows rolled down, according to the state’s attorney’s office, which said officers could see five Flock plate readers inside, along with a collapsible ladder, black latex gloves, a saw and power tools. Each Flock plate reader is worth about $2,800.
Steichmann, of Downers Grove, and Yano, of Indian Head Park, were arrested by Downers Grove police about an hour later.
All three men were charged with two counts of theft to government property between $500 and $10,000 and two counts of criminal damage to property. Those aren’t detainable offenses, so they were released pending trial.
The use of license plate reader cameras has become highly controversial. Last August, an audit conducted by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias found that Flock had been sharing information with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, one of the key agencies carrying out the mass deportation policy of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Flock then put on hold pilot programs with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, another arm of the Department of Homeland Security, according to Garrett Langley, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.
Communities nationwide continue to cut ties with Flock due to concerns about privacy and government surveillance. Residents in Chicago suburbs have demanded the same. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, recently introduced legislation that aims to put guardrails around the use of automatic license plate readers, setting standards for how long data can be retained and who can access it.
Other elected officials, including DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin, have said these readers are invaluable to law enforcement.
“License plate readers are not ‘Big Brother’ surveillance tools,” Berlin wrote Monday. “They are a critical tool used by law enforcement under strict statutory guidelines used to locate specific vehicles suspected of being involved in a crime.
“Anyone caught damaging or stealing an LPR will be met with the full force of the law, and if found guilty, face a significant amount of time behind bars.”