Serial transit thief to get mental care after accepting plea
Quote:
A train-loving man long in trouble with the law for stealing buses and trains took a plea Monday that will route him to a mental health facility, not prison.
Darius McCollum, 52, was charged with criminal impersonation and grand larceny for stealing an empty Greyhound bus in Hoboken, N.J., and driving it through Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn before police stopped him.
He’s been arrested over 30 times in the past 30 years for impersonating transit workers.
McCollum admitted in Brooklyn Supreme Court that he posed as a U.S. Department of Homeland Security officer twice to fool Greyhound employees into giving him a bus on Nov. 8, 2015.
But he also said he was not criminally responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.
McCollum, diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, has admitted to an obsession with public transportation.
He will go to a mental health facility on Rikers Island to be evaluated. Those findings will help Justice Ruth Shillingford determine what sort of treatment McCollum should receive.
However McCollum is treated, Butler said her next step would be trying to overturn all of her client's previous convictions — after all, McCollum has always been autistic, she noted.
McCollum, the subject of a critically-acclaimed documentary “Off The Rails,” is expected back in court on Feb. 14.
An MTA spokesman said the agency will actively look to recover money from McCollum if he made any profits from his crimes.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
09 Jan 2018, 5:12 pm
