A Penn State student is facing felony charges for allegedly entering at least one downtown State College apartment and stealing more than $5,000 in items while the residents were sleeping.
According to a court document, additional charges against 22-year-old Nishith Kapoor are “forthcoming,” after multiple thefts were reported over the weekend at The Standard, 330 W. College Ave.
In a criminal complaint filed on Monday, police wrote that an officer responded to the complex on Saturday morning to meet with residents of an apartment who reported items had been stolen overnight while they slept. They discovered a laptop, three iPhones, credit cards, sneakers and other items were taken sometime during the early morning hours.
Residents of the same apartment called police at about 4:20 a.m. on Sunday morning after they heard someone trying to turn the door handle and opened the door to find a man identified as Kapoor holding two laptops, according to the complaint. Officers made contact with Kapoor and found him in possession of one laptop, which was confirmed to be stolen, police wrote
Police and The Standard staff reviewed surveillance video from the incident on Saturday night and allegedly viewed Kapoor entering the apartment, emerging three minutes later with several of the stolen items and then taking them inside another apartment.
Video then showed Kapoor checking doors and entering multiple other apartments that appeared to be unlocked, according to the complaint. He allegedly returned to the first apartment and came back out four minutes later with a stolen laptop.
A resident of the apartment and a guest said some of the stolen items were in the bedroom with them while they were asleep at the time of the thefts, according to the complaint. The guest’s phone was “believed to be in the bed with her when it was stolen,” police wrote.
After leaving the apartment, Kapoor went in the elevator, where “it appears his pockets are filled with items,” according to the complaint.
Kapoor is charged with felony counts of burglary, criminal trespass and theft.
He was arraigned before District Judge Thomas Jordan, who denied bail because Kapoor “has no ties to the area, is scheduled to be in [California] and more burglary charges are forthcoming.”
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 22.
