Sometimes he likes to perform what he calls “the Outfit Check.” Coral J. Crew cashmere V-neck sweater—check. Gucci charcoal skinny jeans—check. Gucci double-G logo belt—check. Spotless brand-new cream-and-gold Louis Vuitton Damier checkerboard- pattern sneakers—check. Blue Fendi glasses frames with the FENDI sticker still stuck on the lower corner of the lens—check. When he’s dressed like this, he says, “I feel high-class—like nobody can tell me nothing.”
But the outfit loses its protective aura when Kevahn Thorpe is wearing it, as he is on this June morning, before Judge Gregory Carro in State Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan. And Carro is, in fact, about to tell Kevahn something. At a word from the judge, the court officers can step forward to handcuff Kevahn, in all his finery, right there in the courtroom, shouting, “One comin’ in!” as they escort him to the holding cells and eventually to Rikers Island. Kevahn is a slight 17-year-old standing no more than five foot seven, but if this is what Carro decides to do, it won’t be his first trip to the Island. This arrest is the latest in a long series of thefts of high fashion from Gucci and Prada to Bergdorf and Barneys, and even though he has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of stolen goods, a misdemeanor, Kevahn is now facing a one-to-three-year sentence in prison upstate for repeated offenses.
The first time he tried shoplifting, at 16, “I was in Macy’s, the one in Queens Center Mall,” says Kevahn, who has a handsome, angular face, a black-velvet complexion, and a cool, watchful gaze occasionally undone by an irrepressible, wide smile. To a kid who lived with his single mother in the Queensbridge Houses projects, the department store offered an irresistible array of all the things he couldn’t have. He was with his brother, Jovahn, who is one year older. Almost as a game, Kevahn says, the boys “took mad T-shirts”—meaning a lot. The brands were American Rag and Buffalo, which Kevahn now derides as “those cheap shirts.” But the boys got away with their caper and decided to repeat it. “We thought we could just go back there and do it anytime,” he says. “So we got caught.”
These were kids who displayed some of the classic warning signs of juvenile delinquency. Their father wasn’t around much, and their mother was overwhelmed. When Kevahn was 13, he was arrested with two classmates for the theft of a teacher’s credit card and spent six months in a Department of Juvenile Justice facility. But now he was an honors student at Long Island City High School. Calculus was his favorite subject. He could slide between street syntax and proper English. The MySpace page he had set up the year before featured ice-cream-cone graphics and paeans to The Simpsons, listed award-winning children’s and young-adult books as his favorites, and announced that he wanted to go to Harvard Law School. “He got no hood in him at all,” says his brother.
“I think he should’ve been from Beverly Hills,” says his classmate Monet. “When I first met Kevahn, it was in a science class. He wasn’t into fashion. He was into Jordans. He’d just wear regular, like, Akademiks pants, like somethin’ you could get off Jamaica Avenue, and some T-shirt, like what normal kids wear—something he wouldn’t be caught dead in right now.” She and her twin sister, Melisa, became Kevahn’s best friends. “He was smart,” says Melisa. “Kevahn’s mind is not like an average kid’s mind.”
Kevahn was anything but average. By the end of freshman year, he had posted a photo of himself in Christian Dior glasses. The next year, he started a new MySpace page and wallpapered it in Gucci logos. It hadn’t yet occurred to this Queens kid with nothing that he could simply cross the East River and step right into the world conjured up by these labels. But that was about to change.
Kevahn’s epiphany came when he found himself at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, trying to find the train station with his mother. “I saw Dior, Bottega, everything there, and I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s right here, right near where I live!’ ” he says. It was like going from Kansas to Oz. “Kids around where I live can’t be buying there,” he says. But buying wasn’t the point. After the Macy’s bust, he says, “my friend showed me where Barneys is at.” And when he walked through those doors on Madison Avenue, he gained entrance to a glittering realm in which the luxurious trappings of his dreams were literally within reach. “I was like, ‘Oh, Barneys don’t have alarms? Why should we be taking this cheap Macy’s stuff when we could just go to Barneys?’ ”

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NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD Javane Chambers of Paul Island, Grange Hill, Westmoreland, was arrested by investigators from the Lottery Scam Task Force yesterday.
He has been charged with conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, and collecting money under false pretences.
It is alleged that Chambers has fleeced more than US$200,000 from several unsuspecting persons.
The police said the task force carried out an operation in the community about 5:00 am, during which Chambers’ house was searched and he was arrested. Laptops, telephones and other items were seized in the operation.
Investigations are ongoing.

Authorities are trying to track down two women behind a couple of high-dollar heists. Police say the pair shoplifted about $10,000 worth of merchandise from upscale boutiques in West University and Houston.
West University police said the women entered the French Cuff Boutique in the 4000 block of Bellaire on July 28 and left with some expensive loot.
“Normally, when you’re talking about a shoplifting case, it’s a couple hundred dollars maybe. This is ranging in the thousands, many of thousands of dollars,” said West University Police Officer Phil Clark.
Clark said each woman came in carrying a large bag. The video shows them loading up the bags with expensive clothing and jewelry.
“In the beginning, when they walk in, you can see the bags appear to be empty. They’re kind of flat against their body,” Clark said. “But as they leave, they appear to be full.”
The crime was caught on a surveillance camera and Clark described the pictures as “phenomenal.”
The women then hit the French Cuff in Houston and helped themselves to more pricey merchandise.
Boutique owner Kairy-Tate Barkley couldn’t believe her eyes when she watched the video.
“I was sick. I was really sick to my stomach,” she said. “You just feel personally attacked, personally betrayed and then, very quickly, I got mad.”
Barkley left a corporate job to open her high-end stores. It was a dream come true. But the brazen shoplifters have stolen her sense of security.
“If we could catch these two women, it would definitely make us feel secure that they weren’t returning and that they were not going to victimize another store,” Barkley said.
Police want these shoplifters off the street, explaining organized retail theft of this nature is a $30 billion industry nationwide. Lost revenue not only affects local businesses, but deprives the municipal economy of crucial tax dollars. It also means higher prices for honest customers.
Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of these suspects. Tipsters can call 713-222-TIPS (8477) or submit tips online.

The level of infidelity in marriages these days is so scary, some unmarried people are beginning to wonder if marriage is worth it after all. Why do people get married and still continue to sleep around?

A married man, Amaechi Uche Padmore, has been arrested and charged at a Lagos court on the allegation that his lover, Edith Nwokolo, another man’s wife, died while he was having sex with her.

Uche is now facing a murder charge at Ebute Metta Magistrate’s court, Lagos over her death.

The lovers, who are both married, engaged in a sex romp at 94, Mushin Road, Mushin, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. It was gathered that while Uche was on top of Edith, she started breathing heavily, jerked and died. They were reported to have dated each other before they got married to different spouses.

Sources said immediately the incident happened, Uche, who has three kids, abandoned his pant and shoes and fled. Edith was found dead on top of abed and a neigbour who saw Uche with her before she died, raised the alarm and the matter was reported to the police at Olosan Division.

He was arrested and arraigned on Wednesday for murder before the presiding Magistrate, Mr. T. Aborinwa under section 221 of the criminal code law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.

Her death triggered controversy as the deceased woman’s family insisted that Uche was responsible. But the autopsy report presented at the court showed that she died of heart related problem. When the matter came up at the court, Uche pleaded not guilty.

The presiding magistrate granted him bail since the autopsy showed she died as a result of heart problem.