Aspen cops: Local man admits to stealing snowboard gear
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A local transient caught on video stealing a pair of snowboard boots Friday had another stolen pair of boots with him when police caught up with him Saturday at Rubey Park, according to a police report.
Noah Huckabee, 28, admitted to the thefts, “complaining that people were always stealing from him and that he simply ‘had’ to be on the mountain snowboarding and he could not afford to buy the equipment,” the police report states.
The first theft Friday — reported about 10:30 a.m. — came from a 25-year-old man who said he’d left a pair of snowboard boots valued at $550 on top of the lockers at the Gondola Plaza public locker room before going to the restroom, according to the report. A pair of goggles valued at $200 were in one of the boots, as well.
When he came out of the bathroom, they were gone, the report states.
Video surveillance footage from the locker room shows Huckabee — who is known to police from previous contacts — exit the restroom, head straight for the man’s boots, grab them and head for the door, according to the police report.
Police looked for Huckabee at the time but couldn’t find him. They found him the next morning about 8:30 at Rubey Park.
“I confronted Huckabee with stealing the boots the previous day from the gondola locker room,” Officer Forrest Barnett wrote in the report. “He immediately admitted that he took the boots but denied that he took the goggles.”
At the time, Huckabee had another pair of snowboard boots with him that had markings from a local rental shop, the report states. Another officer returned the boots to the shop and discovered they had been stolen earlier in the day, according to the report.
“Huckabee admitted that he took the … rental boots, as well,” the report states.
Huckabee was arrested, charged with two counts of misdemeanor theft and taken to jail.
On Sunday, Huckabee returned the boots to police that were stolen Friday from the locker room. At that point, he also told a police officer he threw the pair of goggles in the trash because “they were all scratched up,” the police report states.
“I clarified that he was referring to the goggles that were in the boots when he stole them,” according to the report. “He said yes and that he ‘doesn’t wear other people’s goggles.’”
Huckabee also clarified that the pair of rental boots were sitting outside the rental shop and that he matched them with the bottom of his foot before determining they would fit and taking them, the report states.
The owner of the first pair of boots picked them up from police Monday, according to the report.
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