Alleged campus crook apprehended

After over a year of allegedly stealing and swiping from colleges across the country, Curtis Perry White was finally brought down by West Philadelphia.

White was apprehended by Philadelphia Police in his West Philadelphia apartment last Wednesday night after a year on the lam following burglaries at at least five colleges since February 2006.

Until then, White, 23, seemed unstoppable. He escaped campus and city police officers, allegedly purloining valuable equipment, including computers and overhead projectors that sold at pawn shops and through Web sites like eBay for thousands of dollars.

His mastery at eluding the law landed him a spot on television's America's Most Wanted in August after surveillance images surfaced of his burglary at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Detectives from Virginia contacted Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker earlier last week after they received a tip that White might be renting an apartment in West Philadelphia.

Walker and his crew surveyed the owners of apartment buildings in the area and found White after one such owner, at 4835 Cedar Ave., recognized the person in the GMU surveillance photos as one of his renters.

According to Walker, he and his men entered White's third-story apartment to find him pacing the room. White took a seat at Walker's request and submitted calmly to arrest.

"It appears like he knew eventually we were going to track him down," Walker said.

Philadelphia police turned White over to authorities to Virginia, where he is wanted for charges of grand larceny and burglary, among others.

At GMU alone, he stole an estimated $89,000 worth of equipment, and he may be linked to similar crimes committed at Harvard, Michigan State, George Washington and American universities, among others.

It is unclear whether he had been planning on committing any burglaries on the campuses of any of the local colleges, including Penn.

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