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Man Gets 7 Years in Prison for Stealing Obama's Teleprompter

AP

A Virginia man was sentenced last week to seven years in federal prison for stealing a truck containing President Obama's Teleprompter.

Eric Brown, of Richmond, Va., stole a Ford truck 2011 containing White House audio equipment, including President Obama's Teleprompter. He agreed to a longer sentence in exchange to avoid prosecution for other similar crimes, according to NBC Chicago:

Young outlined Brown's "nightmarishly long" criminal record — three dozen convictions for crimes including burglary, drug possession, identity fraud and grand theft auto stretching back more than three decades. Most recently, Brown operated "a pretty serious one-man car theft ring," Gibney said.

In response to a question from Gibney, Brown said he targeted Ford F-350s and Ford F-450s because they were easy to steal. One of those trucks happened to be a 2005 Ford owned by the Defense Information Systems Agency and assigned to the White House, which was stolen from a Henrico County hotel parking lot on Oct. 16, 2011, a few days ahead of Obama's visit to a suburban Richmond fire station to promote his jobs plan.

The truck had no White House markings on the exterior, but inside it was loaded with speakers, microphones, a teleprompter, a laptop computer, podiums and other items used in presidential appearances. The van was empty when it was recovered on the other side of town the next day, and some of the items were later recovered at Maryland pawn shops.

Via TIME.