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August 14, 2012 (Update report)
SAP Executive pleads ‘not guilty’ in LEGO-theft case
Thomas Langenbach, arrested by MV police, faces up to five years in prison
By Sue Dremann
Palo Alto Online Staff
August 14, 2012
A Palo Alto software company executive accused of switching barcodes on the tags
of LEGO toys at a Mountain View store rejected a plea bargain and pleaded not
guilty in Santa Clara County Superior Court in Palo Alto on Tuesday morning,
Aug. 14.
Mountain View police arrested Thomas Langenbach, 47, the vice president of Palo
Alto software firm SAP Labs, LLC, on May 8. He was charged with four
felony-burglary counts for allegedly pasting fraudulent barcodes on LEGO toys at
local Target stores. Loss-prevention officers at the Mountain View Target,
located at 555 Showers Dr., detained him when he purchased a LEGO set that he
allegedly labeled with a fraudulent barcode.
Langenbach had allegedly been “ticket switching” LEGO boxes since April 20 at
the Target stores in Mountain View, Cupertino and near his San Carlos home,
according to Mountain View police. He purchased the items at greatly lowered
prices scanned from the barcodes, according to a criminal complaint by the Santa
Clara County District Attorney’s office.
Police found hundreds of unopened LEGO sets -- many special-edition items -- at
his gated, multimillion-dollar home, according to court papers. Items from the
three stores were found at Langenbach’s home, according to a police report filed
with the court.
Investigators also found eight Ziploc bags containing labels with fraudulent
barcodes in his 2011 Toyota Sienna van. There were also shipping boxes in the
home. Police say he had an eBay account, through which he has sold 2,100 items
since April 17, 2011.
Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie previously said Langenbach sold
about $30,000 in merchandise on an eBay account under the name Tom’s Brickyard.
At the time of his arrest, 193 items were for sale. Most were LEGO sets,
according to court papers.
He is charged with four counts of second-degree burglary -- entering with
intent to commit theft -- for the Mountain View and Cupertino thefts. The
popular, expensive LEGO toys are targeted for thefts, and Target stores keep a
close watch on the products, conducting daily inventories, Wylie said.
Langenbach told police that he did not intend to steal the items, according to
court papers. He said that he had seen a video on YouTube about how to make fake
barcodes to get cheaper toys. He switched the barcodes out of curiosity, to see
if it really worked. He also wanted to see if the customer price scanner and
cash-register scanner priced the items the same or cheaper, he said.
He told police he was not paying attention when he checked out the item on May 8
and that he hadn’t checked his receipt to see if the price was cheaper before
leaving the store, according to the police report. He denied having switched the
barcodes in the other incidents. Police have also linked a credit card he used
for his eBay account to one used in one of the April 20 incidents, according to
the report.
Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson has said although the
thefts for which Langenbach is charged only amount to about $1,000, the
sophisticated nature of the crimes and presence of hundreds of boxes of the toys
in his home -- with a number of assembled and staged for photographing -- led
the DA’s office to file the felony charges, she said. If convicted on all
current counts, he could receive a maximum five-year sentence.
Langenbach’s attorney, Thomas Greenberg, said he could not comment at this time
on his client’s decision not to take a plea deal.
MV-Voice.com
-end of report-
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