It wouldn’t surprise Nassau County cops if burglary suspect Ryan Boylan scrawls the graffiti message, “Technology sucks” on the wall of his jail cell.
Boylan, 19, is in a cell because of his cell phone, police say.
It seems Boylan accidentally hit the redial button on his cell phone during a burglary – providing the break-in victim with a voice-mail recording of the crime in progress, said Detective Lt. Steve Skrynecki.
Before the 3:20 a.m. burglary on Sunday, Boylan had called the victim’s girlfriend on her cell and spoke to the victim, the detective said.
Then Boylan and an 18-year-old accomplice kicked in the rear door of their acquaintance’s home in Hicksville, where they also live, Skrynecki said.
Somehow, Boylan “inadvertently hit the redial on his cell phone” while he and his buddy ransacked the house and chatted as they grabbed a video-game player, game cartridges, a remote-controlled car and an antique bayonet, Skrynecki said.
They had no idea their crime-scene commentary was being recorded on the girlfriend’s voice mail, Skrynecki said.
“It was a nice break in the case,” Skrynecki said. “This is the first time we’ve had a cell-phone-to-cell-phone recording during a burglary.”
The victim and his girlfriend later discovered the burglary and called police.
Later, when the girlfriend checked her voicemail, “she hears them talking about the video game” and realized it was a recording of the crime in progress, Skrynecki said.
The couple recognized the voices and turned the voice mail over to Detective Thomas Keteltas, who tracked down Boylan at a friend’s house in Bethpage and found the loot in his car, police said.
Boylan was arrested on a charge of second-degree burglary, and a judge ordered him held in lieu of $2,500 bail.
His alleged accomplice, Dane Donovan, was nabbed yesterday afternoon.
Police said the loot was worth about $1,500.
A woman at Boylan’s Hicksville home – who identified herself as his grandmother but declined to give her name – said she was unhappy to hear the youth had been busted for burglarizing a friend’s home.
“Oh, great,” said the woman. “That’s a real friend, isn’t it?”
When told how her grandson had been caught, she exclaimed, “Holy mackerel!” and then added, “Well, it’s better to get caught – to stop him. I hope he straightens out.”