Ninety DVD movies and 360 audio CDs missing from the collection of the Cleveland Heights–University Heights Public Library were discovered in a suburban Cleveland used-CD store November 28. Library Assistant Chuck Collins had noticed a DVD bearing his institution’s property label in CD Warehouse’s inventory and alerted the library’s director, Stephen Wood, who returned to the store with police.
Detectives found over 800 CDs and 90 DVDs from area public libraries in the store, including discs from the Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Euclid, Shaker Heights, and Willoughby-Eastlake public libraries, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported November 30. While Wood and the detectives were speaking with a clerk, a 24-year-old woman approached the desk and offered to sell the store 23 CDs that still sported library labels. Though police made no arrests, a grand jury will review the evidence against the woman and her boyfriend, who is also a suspect.
Wood told the Plain Dealer that when he realized the number of library CDs in the store, “I was mad as hell, frankly. They had not even bothered to remove any of our property labels.” CD Warehouse employees told police they had assumed the libraries had discarded the discs.
Posted December 4, 2000.