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Herkimer drug thug Kim Vargas goes from success to success: after several years of harassment and drug trafficking along Pleasant Avenue, she wrapped up her stint next door by helping her son Jordan Bormann on his way to prison, charged with a class D violent felony. Jordan Bormann, 21, assaulted an elderly neighbor, sending the old veteran to Albany Medical center with a traumatic brain injury.
Vargas, the subject of many herkimerpost.com articles, enjoyed a two-and-a-half-year reign of unchecked criminality next door to us at 328 Pleasant Avenue, long a gang sanctuary and retail drug thug front.
This March makes our ninth year in Herkimer. For seven of those years, 328 Pleasant Avenue has been tenanted by a succession of low criminal types trafficking drugs and occasionally kids, and doing their inept best to force the “weak old people” from “their” street. As with all else in their wretched lives, they failed. Here’s a 328 Pleasant Avenue rogues gallery:
The Froth On the Scum Of The Earth: 328 Pleasant Avenue Rogues Gallery
Herkimer Monster Mom Kim VargasHerkimer elder-basher Jordan Bormann, unfortunate son of Kimberly (Bormann) Vargas, with vile friends on the porch of 328 Pleasant Avenue.Kim Vargas’ son Jordan Bormann assaults elderly neighbor in front of 328 Pleasant Avenue, causing traumatic brain injury. Officer Jason Crippen’s investigation found elderly neighbor guilty of the assault. Reinvestigation based on victim’s surveillance cam footage saw Bormann charged with Class D Violent Felony.Curtis Cool. Cop-coddled Herkimer drug thug and probable child trafficker ally, menacing his neighbors from driveway of 328 Pleasant Avenue.328 Pleasant Avenue’s wacky Amanda West harassing old folks on their neighboring porch.328 Pleasant Avenue’s Xavier Rowe harassing neighboring old folks.
Herkimer police officer Jason Crippen responding to Kim Vargas’ call. from 328 Pleasant Avenue. Crippen threatened one of us with arrest for using foul language in our driveway.
I’ve speculated at length as to who controls 328 Pleasant Avenue, using it as a retail drug trafficking front. The demographics of the Herkimer area are rapidly going upscale. We’ll see if they sell the place or move another set of gang scum in there. Whatever happens, there are a lot of surveillance drones around and our cameras stand ready.
This pair of apprentice vandals from 333 Pleasant Avenue have been bombarding our house daily this week with ice balls. They took out a window. 333’s the former Barton Gang place, across the street from us. Joyce Barton and her crew left it with kindred spirits, who are apparently raising their kids in the Herkimer gang tradition of vandalism and harassment.
The young man who’s the principal thrower is careful to video his work–assume he’s being paid. Assume probably by neighboring drug thug and monster mom Kim Vargas, who’s upset that her son Jordan Bormann’s facing a felony prison sentence for savaging an elderly neighbor in the street.
333 Pleasant Avenue apprentice vandal joyfully breaking window with fresh iceball.333 Pleasant Avenue, Herkimer. The Joyce Bartons moved on, their trash heaped proudly. behind them.Herkimer Monster Mom Kim Vargas
Will send this on to the police. They’ll have a chat with the kids and their folks.
“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein
On November 4, members of the neighboring gang from landlord Jay Smith’s 332 Pleasant Avenue attacked my wife, Linda Kaidan, as she exited her car in our driveway after a 500-mile drive. One kept shouting “I’m gonna drag her!” before assaulting Linda in our driveway. They broke off their attack on the 68-year-old grandmother and returned to their front yard when the police arrived. Linda counted nine of them, in and around the driveway. (Not to be confused with the gang that hangs out at the gang house on the other side of us: 328 Pleasant Avenue. The gang meat puppet currently living there is Herkimer Mother of the Year Kim Vargas.)
11.4.22 Herkimer teen from 332 Pleasant Avenue attacks 68-year-old grandmother in our driveway as she exits her car.
“Those cameras don’t work at night.”
For some time now, we’ve been overhearing that our cameras don’t work at night because the little red lights aren’t always on. The little red lights are the infrared beams that illuminate the dark in the absence of enough ambient light. When there is sufficient ambient light, they don’t come on. Thus they are off. The cameras work fine.
11.4.22 This photo was taken without the use of infrared enhancement, as the gang’s porch light and the street lamp provide enough light.
The detail provided by this blind camera is more than enough for me to identify familiar faces:
11.4.22 332 Pleasant Avenue gang who supported or participated in criminal trespass and harassment of the assault on the 68-year-old grandmother. Left to right: drug thug and gang den mother Kimberly (Bormann) Vargas of 328 Pleasant Avenue. The Pirate, seen trespassing and throwing stuff prior to the assault. Teenager and frequent criminal trespasser and hate graffiti artist called “Lem” by his friends, all of whom hang out at Kim Vargas’ house. And the “Gonna drag you!” teen, who assaulted Linda Kaidan. She is most probably the sister of Kyle Stone, ace crack trafficker from 332. Not circled, but to the top of Vargas, next to the police officer: Kylee Figueroa, Joyce Barton’s daughter. The Bartons moved recently, leaving Kylee at 332 but taking their beloved dog. Bare ruined choirs: Joyce Barton moved out recently, leaving a mound of trash and daughter Kylee behind. (Their dog, they took.)
So yes, the cameras work at night. We’ve forwarded more videos to the police and expect charges to soon be filed. Of course, we’ll just keep, what was it? “Dragging,” on the blog.
Things have livened up here on Herkimer’s Pleasant Avenue since I survived a vicious street assault on 9/30. Formerly quiet gang-allied neighbors have grown aggressive, harassing and assaulting my wife and daughter in our driveway. A squad of them went after my daughter Alex and wife Linda on 10/24, 10/25, and 11/4. The pattern keeps repeating: one of us enters our driveway after dark, and the swarm descends from next door at 332 Pleasant Avenue, long a gang haven— trespassing, throwing stuff, menacing, and attacking a 68-year-old grandmother as she defends herself. They scatter as soon as they spot the police. It’s a miracle no one here has been injured as the gangers practice elder abuse. I went down with a brain injury when Kim Vargas’ son Jordan Bormann threw me to the sidewalk and kicked me. (I was videoing his mother, drug thug Kim Vargas accosting my wife.)
“We do not retreat—retreating is how Rust Belt Herkimer became a pirate haven.
If this continues, one of us will be injured. We do not retreat—retreating is how Rust Belt Herkimer became a pirate haven. These folks aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed and may not know what a Class B Violent Felony verdict would do to their lives—the sort of verdict young Mr. Bormann is facing. No more probation-only: it’s a mandatory multiyear prison sentence. Used to be, beating up old folks in New York was a misdemeanor blood sport, just youthful hijinks. No more. And if you kill or permanently injure one of us oldsters, you won’t be seeing the Outside for a very long time. Open Season on the elderly in New York is now closed. The Herkimer Police responded promptly. Hopefully, they’ll soon shut this dangerous game down.
The video is of all three incidents, somewhat edited. Those familiar with South Herkimer gangdom will recognize Kylee Figueroa, Joyce Barton’s daughter. (The Bartons left town about a month ago, leaving their trash and Kylee behind.) The young woman trespassing and assaulting my wife is also from 332 Pleasant, probably the colorful Kyle Stone’s younger sister. (She’s the one shouting “I’m gonna drag her!” meaning my wife.) 10:07
Don’t know who the ball-hugging, object-throwing trespasser is.
Don’t know who the ball-hugging, object-throwing trespasser is. Probably from somewhere here on our Pleasant Avenue. (There are people still living who swear it was once pleasant.)
Sorry, I couldn’t join the fray, but am still recovering from a subdural hematoma, courtesy of Jordan Bormann. (I get to see him each day as he lounges on his mother’s porch, 15 feet away, eating takeout and smoking weed. His trial’s tentatively scheduled for April. Until then, he gets to lounge at home, courtesy of New York bail reform. Don‘t worry, I’m protected from my violent mercurial assailant by a restraining order and his ankle monitoring device.)
Frankly, I think this is all about rage at the loss of drug and child trafficking income here in the ‘hood. We’ve lived here for 9 years and trafficking’s never been this light. Plus, our attackers keep checking in with mother-of-the-year Kim Vargas, who may be incentivizing their behavior. The dynamics of the Mohawk Valley are rapidly changing, fueled by an influx of affluence, itself catalyzed by climate change and the chip fab construction boom.
Things are quickly changing here, hopefully for the better.
On 9/30/22, 21-year-old Jordan Bormann savagely attacked his 74-year-old neighbor, leaving the elderly veteran unconscious and bleeding on the sidewalk in front of his home. He was diagnosed with a brain injury. Bormann is charged with a violent felony against an oldster, a local blogger who was videoing a confrontation between Bormann’s drug peddler mother and the victim’s wife.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree: Bormann and his mother Kimberly (Bormann) Vargas, moved into the rental house next to the victim’s two years prior to the heinous attack. Mother Kimberly immediately began harassing and threatening the elderly homeowners, objecting to their surveillance cameras, their security lights and their activist blog, where they posted her alleged drug trafficking activities. She’d call the police and falsely report them for harassment and trespassing–charges given the lie by their surveillance videos.
The day of the assault, Kim twice threatened the victim’s wife with physical violence–in keeping with her history of threats and harassment. Bullied from Vargas’ porch as they were in their adjacent driveway, the couple sallied forth, the wife confronting Kim, her husband filming, Jordan’s friends heckling him and his wife as Jordan watched. (If you don’t confront bullies, they just escalate.)
With a role model like Kimberly Vargas, how else would Jordan turn out? Watch Kimberly strut her foul-mouthed stuff over the two years she’s lived next to us, the elderly couple: threatening violence, harassing our mentally ill daughter. Just a few brief highlights of her despicable behavior:
Jordan Bormann is of an age where he’s responsible for his actions and will be held accountable for them in court. He’s facing a mandatory minimum of 2 years, a maximum of 7, for a Class B Violent Felony.
As I told the District Attorney’s staff and the court, I hope his sentence sees him sent far away from his mother’s reach, where he can receive effective counseling and learn a vocation. To be just given probation would leave him where he is now, 15 feet from our house, lounging on his mother’s porch, eating takeout and smoking weed. He won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of a decent life if he’s returned to his mother Kimberly’s foul clutches. To reinforce my suggestion to the court, I included a copy of this video with my Victim’s Impact Statement, which is reviewed prior to sentencing.
You can imagine what I think of New York’s crazy gone-today-here-tomorrow bail law.
Boy-next-door Jordan Bormann–far right, on porch railing. He’s with his heckler friends.
Bormann’s unconscious victim bled profusely. Bormann kicked him as he lay out cold.
11/2/22 Correction. The name of my assailant is Jordan Bormann, not Jordan Harris. (I worked with Harris at Harvard. He never beat me up.)
On September 30th, in the Herkimer tradition of beating bloggers, I was the victim of a vicious unprovoked street attack by Jordan Bormann, son of longtime Herkimer drug thug Kimberly (Bormann) Vargas. Jordan Bormann, a strapping young adult, charged me as I was photographing his drug-dealer mother’s usual harassment of us, hurling me violently backward onto the public sidewalk and seriously injuring me. As I lay unconscious, he cursed me, kicked me and shoved my wife away when she tried to help me.
I sustained a subdural hematoma (deep brain bleed) and was taken first by medevac to Little Falls Hospital, and then by ambulance to Albany Medical Center for neurological treatment. A subdural hematoma can be fatal.
It’s taken me several weeks to recover enough to compile video evidence of the attack, file a police complaint and write this post. As I write, the Bormann-Vargases are next door on their front porch, partying and smoking substances legal and illegal.
The initial police investigation was conducted by an officer against whom I previously filed an extensive misconduct report. After interviewing my assailant, his mother and their friends, he determined me guilty of provoking the assault; seems young Mr. Bormann was just defending his mom. Not interviewed was my wife, present the entire time. Footage from our two CCTV cameras covering the attack was not requested. Happily, I was not arrested for littering the public pavement with the copious amount of blood from my wound.
We’ve been writing about Kim Vargases’ drug dealing, threats and harassment for several years. In response, Vargas often calls the Herkimer Police with bogus complaints. On September 30th, she called them to complain that we’d stolen her cat. Her cat, the malnourished Shadow, often lounges on our porch railing and is delighted to be fed the good stuff. Astoundingly, the police often respond to Vargas’ absurd complaints, as they did that day, a Friday.
The Varga’s porch, as on most nice days, was filled with aggressive pondlife harassing us as we went about our lives in our adjacent driveway. While the police were present, Vargas told an officer on camera that she would “punch that bitch [my wife] in the face before I move.” The officer made no remark. Obviously, Vargas’ son Jordan Bormann comes by his violent behaviors honestly.
9.30.22 Usual aggressive pondlife gathered on Kim Vargas’ 328 Pleasant Avenue front porch to smoke substances legal and illegal and harass homeowners next door. My assailant, Vargas’ son Jordan Bormann, sits on the railing.9.30.22 A candid shot: Herkimer drug thug Kim Vargas, aka Kim Bormann Vargas, in front of her 328 Pleasant Avenue. Son Jordan Bormann is to the rear. Vargas has just invited neighbor, software engineer Linda Kaidan, to “Hit me! Hit me!”9.30.22 Blood from Berry’s injured skull in front of Vargas’ house.10.1.22 Wound to my head following attack by Kim Vargas’ son Jordan Bormann on 9.30.22., which caused a deep brain bleed. Note staples. 75-year-old-bodies heal slowly.
We have several videos of the attack. Below is a portion of an audio video, covering from the time of the police responding to Vargas’ 911 cat call to the moment just before the first responders arrive to scrape me off the pavement. It ends with my wife dashing into our house to get her cellphone, evil laughter following her.
Video Timeline
0:01-0:44 My cellphone video. Typical harassment from pondlife on Vargas’ porch. Police arrive, police leave. Usual attempts to drive us from our property and then from the public sidewalk.
0:45 Action has moved down the public sidewalk. (Suspect Vargases believe they’re off camera.) Vargas invites Kaidan to “Hit me!”
04:02 Jordan Bormann charges me as I’m filming, hurls me backwards onto the pavement, knocking me unconscious, lacerating my scalp and causing a subdural hematoma (deep brain bleed).
04:06 Bormann shoves my wife Linda away as she tries to come to my aid, then curses and stomps me.
05:00-End Vargas and male thug from porch ignore my wife’s repeated direction to leave me alone. Linda dashes into the house to get her cellphone, denouncing the twosome hunched over me as “Monsters!” Evil laugher follows her.
More to come: A longer higher quality video, clips and a critque of the initial police investigation by Officer Jason Crippen.
On 5/13/22, Herkimer gang gal Carrie Ann Bass hosted a large fire-themed party at Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Hub, presided over by Bass and owned by landlord Jay Smith. The centerpiece of that most recent raucous gathering was a large illegal fire, which was twice shut down by Herkimer Police following my 911 calls.
Bass rents a house on one end of the trafficking hub–341 Eureka Avenue– and has long treated the hub as her little empire for dirt: child trafficking, drug trafficking, poison gassing of nosy neighbors, criminal tampering. Cops and cameras have done much to stifle her, but she’s still there, the last holdout of the Stanley Sykes gang.
The Roman fire squad slipped into the child trafficking lot under the cover of darkness at 0200 hrs on 5/22. They came in two cars whose license plate frames read “Rome Pre-Owned” and filled with wooden shipping pallets. (Never saw the two of them or their cars before.)
By 0204 they’d broken up some of the pallets and were kindling a fire in the rickety cinder block structure used for the party bonfire two weeks before. I called 911. The Herkimer Police police responded and made them put out the fire.
Undeterred, they later broke up another shipping pallet and started the fire anew, moving a car between the fire and our cameras. The brief and no doubt unsatisfactory fire quickly ran out of fuel. Unusually, they didn’t rip the slats off of our poor old fence to kindle the flames. (24 cameras.)
Two of them then hung around for hours, waiting for Bass to return, presumably to be paid–she’d cleverly left well before they arrived. One of them met briefly with her, and then they were gone. Haven’t seen them time since. (The lad with the nice pink underwear doing some weeding should thank me for not putting that clip on YouTube. )
5.13.22 Herkimer gang welcomes Spring with much noise and an illegal bonfire in their sanctuary at Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking’ Lot, landlord Jay Smith, proprietor.
There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity can hide. Job 34:22
(Forensic analysis of the accompanying video might produce usable facial recognition features.)
5.22.22 Gang guys breaking up shipping pallet to kindle illegal fire in Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Hub.5.22.22 Gang guys readying to break up shipping pallet to kindle illegal fire in Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Hub.
Here are the two principals with their cars, waiting for Bass. (Facial recognition quality images could probably be extracted from the video)
Roman Fire Squad in the child trafficking lot with one of their cars: Subaru Outback, NY license HHW5652. (Per binoculars.) Rear plate frame reads “Rome Pre-owned”.
Other Roman Fire Squad car. Appears to be a Chevy 4-door. NY license JCH8451
Another black, four-door Rome Pre-Owned is often seen at Bass’s: NY license KTH6114
Frequently seen at Carrie Ann Bass’s house at 341 Eureka Avenue in Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Hub: NY license KTH6114. The rear license plate frame also reads “Rome Pre-owned”.
We’re keeping a camera on that tippy, uncemented cinder fireplace in the trafficking lot. It’s an easy accident away from the dry scrub around Bass’ law-abiding neighbor’s new wooden fence and the house they brought back from the dead through years of sweat equity:
5.14.22 Gang-built fireplace beside brush and fence in Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Hub.
The celebration lasted until the wee hours of the following day, orchestrated by booming quasi-music and a constantly stoked illegal fire. The fire was the centerpiece of the festivities, set amid some loosely stacked cinder blocks next to dry brush and a wooden fence. (In Herkimer, we call this crack craftsmanship.)
It wouldn’t have taken much to send the whole flaming ramshackle mess tumbling into the brush–no mortar in that structure. It’s been very dry here–every few hours we seem to get a dry weather fire warning from the Weather Service. The gang probably plans to use it for future parties. Someone needs to rain on their parade.
5.15.22 Slapped together gang fireplace beside brush and fence in Herkimer’s Historic Child Trafficking Lot, just behind 341 Eureka Avenue. It appeared the afternoon of the party.
It required two 911 police responses to get the revelers to bank their illegal fire. It should have been extinguished. Herkimer Village doesn’t permit fire within 100 feet of a structure–that’s most of the village.
To be fair, these folks were sedate compared to previous next-door firebugs, such as drug trafficker Kyle (“I’m gonna sell crack until I die”) Stone. Though his fires never lasted as long or soared as high as their bonfire.
8.4.19 Jay Smith tenant Kyle Stone performs the cracked-out druggies’ fire jump behind 332 Pleasant Avenue.
Hopefully, after this post and the 911 calls, village authorities will see to the disposal of that crazy firebox and issue a citation before we all go up in flames some night.
Oh. Here’s Carrie Ann Bass’ car. It has no rear plate. Hasn’t for months. She’s always trundling about in it. The front plate is FVK1613, if anyone’s interested.
Carrie Ann Bass’ car at 341 Eureka (rea4). No rear plate. The front plate is GVK1613, at least today.
Thank me–I’ve spared you the booming video of these fools.
Here’s the latest attack on our little driveway light. This unwitting suicide attack occurred on 4/4. Watch and listen as masked kamikaze Chunky Monkey stands on our wet grass and chops away at the light cord with a pair of metal scissors. The result was what you’d expect. Chunky Monkey ran away whimpering in pain down the driveway of 335 Pleasant Avenue and didn’t appear again. I checked the footage of that house for the next 12 hours.
Is the fool alive? Don’t know. Several cars came out from behind that house over the next eight hours. He could have been in one of them, being taken to the hospital for cardiac arrhythmia, or up in the hills to have his body dumped. Electrical shock doesn’t always kill you immediately–it can occur hours or days after the event. (Quoting my wife Linda, who was an apprentice electrician in Florida and has horror stories.)
We think some sadistic gang creeps put Chunky up to this–gave him or her a few bucks and some crack, not caring if Chunky suffered or died, maybe even hoping he or she would, and we’d find another body in our driveway. Previous corpses have been those of squirrels. A few calls to local hospitals would find if someone short and stocky was recently admitted for electrical burns or shock.
That gentle little $50.00 LED light has excited a lot of passion in the Herkimer community:
Our neighboring drug and child traffickers are especially incensed. Some even called the police, demanding that their right to darkness be protected. Others tampered with the light and were arrested, or harassed us over it, and were arrested. It made a fine lure for petty criminals. And it seems to have sparked the installation of a number of similar lights along Pleasant and Eureka Avenues, more cameras, and better bulbs in our street lights.
Repositioned Light Coming Soon
The light still works. It just needs a new cord. We’re not replacing it on the pole: we don’t want to be responsible, no matter how indirectly, for someone’s death. But, out of concern for the safety of ourselves and our neighbors, such as neighboring Kim Vargas and her family, we’ll install it or a brighter light high on the house, also pointed left toward King Street. Some of the folks who hate light are usually high by early evening–maybe they’ll be high enough to reach the light.
About The Cameras
This is the first time anyone’s seen or heard our newest POE camera, dubbed Street Sweeper, in action. As you can see, Street Sweeper has a huge field of vision. Chunky’s panicked retreat was captured by our faithful old 1080p Amcrest system and the two clips combined.
On Street Sweeper, an unhackable Reolink of the sort we have covering thug Carrie Ann Bass’s antics to our rear, you can hear Chunky approaching from the direction of Herkimer’s Historic Crack House at 318 Pleasant Avenue, a Jay Smith property. It picks up the sound of distant traffic and Chunky’s pathetic whimpering as he runs away. (It’s also recorded many hurtful things our neighbors have said about us and others. )
If you’re interested, the whole system– camera, ethernet cable, and POE switch, was about $100 and ties in nicely with a router. It can be easily controlled from your cellphone and permits real-time viewing. Great for checking out those odd night noises. The clips are MP4 and can be played on any media player and shared over a variety of media. And of course, the Herkimer Police are always delighted to receive crime clips.
Something there is that does not love a light. Especially the gentle LED light gracing the end of our driveway here on Herkimer’s dingy-dark Pleasant Avenue. When we first installed it, one of our drug trafficking neighbors called the police. Another discussed putting anthrax in our mailbox. Oh! The endless wailings!
A few years later and walking down the street at dawn reveals a lot more of these cheap, bright lights, mostly in backyards. And certainly our little light’s made it much easier for our cameras to pick out the faces of those trafficking out of landlord Jay Smith’s 326 Pleasant Avenue, two doors down. And the comings and goings of street bruiser Kim Vargas, next door at 328 Pleasant, as she makes her good-neighbor rounds of our village. On the bright side, we have some decent kids on the street who are happy to play ball in the lamp’s light.
Prior to December, the light had been menaced but not attacked. That changed while I was away on 12/31, when 266 Pleasant Ave’s resident habitual offender Chandler Seelbach vandalized it. In November, Seelbach menaced and threatened my wife, Linda Kaidan over the light. She registered a complaint with the Herkimer Police and we hadn’t seen Seelbach for a while. Here’s a video of his vandalism. It begins with a brief clip of one of Kyle Stone’s occasional outbursts against the light:
“Neither Stone nor Seelbach would be infesting our community were it not for New York’s muddleheaded bail reform law
Stone and Seelbach are typical of Herkimer’s drug and child trafficking gang members: inept. Most of them have never worked and they have no grasp of cause and effect. Despite their attempts, the light still works. Seelbach twisted its supports out of alignment, making it hard to properly position. My complaint against Chandler Seelbach for Criminal Tampering is pending with the Herkimer Police. Seelbach seemed unconcerned about the 4 cameras recording him. And compared to the rest of his criminal history, it’s a minor offense. Neither Stone nor Seelbach would be infesting our community were it not for New York’s muddleheaded bail reform law, which is based on the philosophy that there’s really no such thing as a bad boy. In Florida, they’d have ago long been in prison.
Luring With A Light
330 Pleasant Avenue – Battered but unbowed security light.
I probably should mount the new, brighter light we have on hand. But am happy to leave the battered lamp where it is for now in hopes that some other drug-addled dimwits will attack it and be arrested. Think of it as luring with a light. Here;’s the law:
New York Penal Law § 145.20: Criminal Tampering in the Third Degree
A person is guilty of criminal tampering in the third degree when, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he tampers with property of another person with intent to cause substantial inconvenience to such person or to a third person. Criminal tampering in the third degree is a Class B misdemeanor. The penalty is 90 days in jail or 1 year’s probation, a fine and restitution to the victim.
Her cat, the malnourished Shadow, often lounges on our porch railing and is delighted to be fed the good stuff. Astoundingly, the police often respond to Vargas’ absurd complaints, as they did that day, a Friday.
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Others tampered with the light and were arrested, or harassed us over it, and were arrested. It made a fine lure for petty criminals. And it seems to have sparked the installation of a number of similar lights along Pleasant and Eureka Avenues, more cameras, and better bulbs in our street lights. 
