Watergate, it ain’t.
A thief broke into the Atlantic Avenue office of Councilman Steve Levin (D–Brooklyn Heights) over the weekend — hours after the lawmaker had his 11-year-old Honda stolen from in front of his Greenpoint house.
The freshman legislator had to laugh at his run of bad luck.
“It was a little funny,” he said. “I got a call saying that my office had been burglarized, so I said I’d be down there in a few minutes — and then I had to call them back to say I wouldn’t be coming because my car was gone.”
Levin’s travails began late on Feb. 26, when he parked his ancient wheels on Morgan Avenue near Meeker Street.
Sometime overnight, the classic car was stolen, but Levin only discovered the crime at 5 am when he got the call about the 4:20 am break-in at his office.
Cops say that Louis Adule, 22, broke through the glass windows at the Boerum Hill district office between Court Street and Boerum Place — and a witness and Levin said that the thief was trying to steal a flat-screen TV just inside the office.
But an ear-witness heard it all.
“Living here for 30 plus years, you get to know the sounds — police, ambulances, sirens — but a loud thud at 5 am? No way,” said Jerry Haggerty, who called cops.
By the time officers arrived, Adule had made his way into the office, where he was trying to steal computer monitors, Levin said. He was arrested at the scene.
There’s no indication that the crime had any connection to the lawmaker’s day job, even though the office is filled with enough city secrets to keep G. Gordon Liddy excited for months.
Adule has been charged with burglary, criminal mischief and trespassing, said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for District Attorney Charles Hynes. Adule has a prior conviction for assaulting a man in 2007 after trying to steal DVDs from a now-defunct dollar store on Church Avenue in Ditmas Park — an act that landed him in jail for five days.
Far less is known about the car thief up in Greenpoint. But cops from the 94th Precinct certainly aren’t surprised that a car as desirable as Levin’s 11-year-old Honda was swiped. Over the past month, there have been eight stolen cars in the precinct — the majority being Hondas or Toyotas, said 94th Precinct Deputy Inspector Terence Hurson.
“Honda Civics are a big steal,” Hurson said. “They’re popular cars and they get stolen.”
How popular? Even after his office was broken into, Levin was still bemoaning the loss of his beloved wheels.
“I really liked that car,” said Levin, specifically citing its Barack Obama sticker, dent on the driver’s side and a bungee cord holding up the front bumper.
