It sure made for some saucy surveillance video, but the naked burglar who tried to rip off the Slice of Towson pizzeria on West Pennsylvania Avenue botched it from the start.
"If you're going to break into a place, why a pizza shop? What are you looking for in a pizza shop? We don't leave money here,” said owner Paul Rizas, “We're not stupid."
You may not recognize him with his clothes on, but his wealth of tattoos including a big Baltimore Ravens head on his arm made 23-year-old Jonathan Karron Newman hard to miss.
He was charged with second-degree burglary and other related charges. He was released on $50,000 bail.
Court records suggest Newman stole some of the business's checks and tried to forge one for $200 before that backfired at a Howard Bank branch in Dundalk.
Not only did he walk away empty handed, but it also showed him leaving in his girlfriend's car---the same car that he had been driving when Baltimore County Police arrested him for a suspended license a few weeks earlier.
"We looked into this car, who'd been driving it, who owned it, where it had been and us doing that investigation really helped us put everything together," said Cpl. John Wachter of the Baltimore County Police Department.
Okay, so it was far from the perfect crime, but why would Newman shed his drawers before trying to break into the cash register drawers?
"He did not provide us with an explanation as to why," responded Wachter.
We asked the man who knows a whole lot about making some quick dough---the victim, who pointed out the obvious.
"They found his pants in the ductwork so he got stuck or he took it off to squeeze through this little hole," said Rizas.
A dinky little hole for a suspect that stands 6-foot-1 with an imposing looking, hacksaw-like heavy wire placed in just the right spot to make this a recipe for disaster.
Maybe the suspect was lucky after all, and there's hope the victim's business may yet benefit from the exposure.
"Whoever didn't know we were here, they know now,” said Rizas, “but I want them to know about the pizza... not just this Slice Burglar."
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