The little-told story in regards to the BART seat-slashing gang that was a part of an upholstery racket

This text was initially revealed on October 19, 2019.

The BART scheme began to unravel after one man tried to make a take care of police.

Freshly arrested, the person determined to cut price utilizing an attention-grabbing, unknown bit of knowledge. He instructed police there was a racket being carried out on BART trains, involving paid-for vandalism of the transit system’s seats.

“He mentioned, ‘I’ll inform you what, there’s this little rip-off happening over right here that I find out about, as a result of I used to be one of many guys that they employed … they’d pay us, like, $2 a slash, or $3 a slash,’ one thing like that,” longtime BART spokesman and writer Michael Healy recalled.

It was the early Eighties on the time, and the younger transit system was slightly below 10 years previous.

At first, the query in regards to the rip-off, because it was posed to Healy earlier this month, appeared too outlandish to be true.

“This subsequent query is so weird, and I simply adore it,” prefaced East Bay Yesterday host, Liam O’Donoghue. “Right here’s the query, I’m going to simply learn it verbatim because it got here to me by way of Twitter.”

“Apparently there was a racket at one level the place gangs would slash seats with knives so that they’d need to be re-upholstered, producing extra time pay for BART employees and further orders for supplies suppliers. Particular patterns can be reduce in so that they’d know who to pay for the ‘favor,’” O’Donoghue learn.

“Is that true?” O’Donoghue requested of Healy.

“I do not deny it,” he replied.

The preliminary contract to wash and restore broken prepare automotive seats was awarded to Service Programs Inc. in August 1979 for $40,000.

Stanley Hurwitz was the proprietor on the time, and the Pacheco-based firm was tasked with repairing BART’s seats for a charge of $16.50 every. (Or, in at the moment’s money, slightly below $48 a seat.)

The nominal quantity of $40,000 appeared sufficient on the time, however then vandalism on BART seats quickly was on the rise.

“We seen that there was a spike within the vandalism of the cushions, and it was kinda creeping up,” mentioned Healy, “and over a a number of month interval — it was actually sky-high — and there have been these slashes within the seats. After which we might ship the cushions out to this man and so they’d restore them.”

The re-upholstery companies had been a lot in want, it appeared, that the next 12 months, BART determined to increase the contract — and improve the contract to $60,000, The Chronicle reported. In January 1981, one other leap within the variety of vandalized seats triggered BART to as soon as once more lengthen and improve its contract with Service Programs, this time for $75,000, or $221,170 at the moment. (The San Francisco Examiner estimated the contract quantities to be even greater — $100,000 in 1980, and $175,000 in 1981.)

The slashes had been at all times the identical, nevertheless. One slash on the again of the seat, with one other slash within the entrance.

However one man cracked after being arrested on an unrelated cost, and he let police know in regards to the rip-off, in line with Healy. Afterward, each BART police and the Harmony Police Division started to analyze. A sting operation ensued with an undercover investigator infiltrating the corporate and “on no less than a dozen events,” the criticism alleged, police noticed 4 suspects slashing BART seats.

The Contra Costa County District Legal professional’s Workplace issued a warrant and BART police arrested 4 individuals within the scheme: Hurwitz, who was 46 on the time, his son Joseph, 19, and two workers of the corporate, John Rucker, 23, and David Fisher, additionally 23. The group was charged with grand theft, felony vandalism and legal conspiracy in March 1981.

It was estimated that “presumably 85 % of the greater than 7,000 BART prepare cushions broken since August 1979” was the work of this firm, the Examiner reported on the time.

All mentioned and executed, BART had paid the corporate $115,000 for the repairs, a complete of about $339,128 in at the moment’s cash.

A 12 months later, in 1982, Rucker and Fisher pleaded no contest to expenses of conspiring to slash BART’s seats.

The Examiner reported that Rucker was to serve a 12 months in county jail, whereas Fisher acquired 190 days, each with three years’ probation. Each had been ordered to pay restitution.

The elder Hurwitz additionally pleaded no contest to the costs and was sentenced to a 12 months in jail by September 1982, and likewise given three years’ probation, and ordered to pay restitution. He was “free on his personal recognizance” on the time of sentencing, however was given six months’ credit score for time served on the state Division of Corrections facility in Vacaville, the Examiner wrote.

Costs in opposition to Joseph Hurwitz had been dropped.

BART filed a $2.16 million civil swimsuit in opposition to Hurwitz, which was pending in Alameda County Superior Court docket as of 1982. It is unclear what turned of the case, and searches for information of the swimsuit got here up empty.

To listen to extra from Michael C. Healy, writer of “BART: The Dramatic Historical past of the Bay Space Fast Transit System,” together with what it is prefer to be within the Transbay Tube throughout an earthquake, to the time when there was a proposal for a bar automotive on BART, and a (too-brief) point out of a brothel as soon as run out of the Ashby station, head to the “East Bay Yesterday” podcast, here.