Two officers formerly employed by the Wentworth Institute of Technology’s Police Department today admitted their roles in the theft last year of thousands of dollars’ worth of surveying equipment from an on-campus storage room, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

JONATHAN CARROLL, JR. (D.O.B. 9/22/81) and JAY A. CUNHA (D.O.B. 1/26/82), each pleaded guilty to one count of larceny of over $250 for their roles in the August 2008 thefts, which were foiled when other Wentworth police tracked the stolen items to an online auction website and recovered them.

Assistant District Attorney John H. Lacey of Conley’s Special Prosecutions Unit recommended that both men each complete one year of probation; Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball sentenced Carroll and Cunha to 30 days of probation, noting that because they pleaded guilty to a felony, both are likely to be forever precluded from working in law enforcement.

Had the case proceeded to trial, Lacey would have proven that sometime in August 2008, Carroll was on night duty patrolling the college grounds when he came across a storage unit in the South Annex Building located on Parker Street in Roxbury. Enlisting the assistance of fellow officer Cunha, the two men entered the storage unit, removed three boxes containing GPS and surveying equipment that belonged to the college, and placed the items in their vehicles.

On Sept. 16, 2008, an employee at the college contacted the Wentworth Police Department to report that GPS and surveying equipment worth an estimated $40,000 was missing from an on-campus storage unit. The following day, a different employee provided the investigating officer from the college’s police department with a list of the missing equipment, including the product names, model numbers, serial numbers and Wentworth Institute of Technology tag numbers for the missing items.

During the course of an investigation, Wentworth officers discovered that items matching the description of the stolen items had been placed on Ebay, and that several individuals had made bids on the merchandise. Investigators contacted prospective buyers to notify them that the items they had made bids on may have been stolen.

Wentworth officers also contacted a witness who had purchased and received from Carroll a Trimble 5800 GPS Radio Receiver for $4,500 in early September. The serial number on the inner panel of the radio receiver matched a serial number on a list of missing Wentworth equipment. The same buyer had made bids on other equipment and was able to provide investigators with the serial numbers for those pieces of equipment. All of the serial numbers he provided to investigators were positively matched to the serial numbers of the missing equipment.

Following a post-Miranda interview with Wentworth Police Department officers, both Carroll and Cunha admitted their roles in the theft of the equipment. All of the stolen equipment was returned to college authorities.

Carroll was represented by John Baccari. Cunha was represented by attorney George Hassett.