Gear Worth Thousands Returned Thanks to Shomrim

About three weeks ago, on June 18, Shomrim received a call about suspicious activity taking place on Maple Street near Kingston Ave. Two callers, both homeowners in the vicinity, informed Shomrim that a man was riffling through two suitcases in a furtive manner, and seemed to be searching for valuables.

Shomrim arrived at the scene and found the suspect, a middle-aged African-American male, riffling through two suitcases filled with advanced audio equipment – including a microphone, transmitters, recorders, stands and a flute.

Shomrim confronted the man, who told them that he found the suitcases on the street. Shomrim then put a call through to police, who questioned the man – and discovered that he is a homeless person from Chicago. After he gave over his information and relinquished the suitcases, police allowed him to go on his way, since there was no evidence that he had stolen them.

The Shomrim volunteers then took possession of the suitcases, and over the next two weeks made every effort possible to find their rightful owner.

A couple of days ago, Shomrim volunteer Chaim Perl, a professional photographer and videographer, identified one piece of equipment as an audio recorder. He carefully inspected the recordings, and found that they were from several Jewish weddings (most of them were Lubavitch weddings, as revealed by the singing of the Niggun Daled Bavos before the Chuppah).

Yesterday, July 5^th, Chaim posted a photo of the recorder to Facebook, along with information about the weddings recorded on it – including the names of the officiating rabbis, and the first names of the Chassanim and Kallos – which are recited aloud under the Chuppah. He tagged several musicians to his post, and within half an hour he was informed that the rightful owner of the equipment had been identified.

The owner of the equipment turned out to be Yehudah Piamenta of Crown Heights, son of the famed flutist Avi Piamenta, and a talented flutist in his own right.

Yehudah revealed that the value of the flute alone is $9,000, and that he was especially distressed about losing it, since it actually belongs to a fellow musician who he had borrowed it from. The rest of the equipment is valued at around $15,000 in total.

How the suitcases were lost is a bit of a mystery. On the day they were found by Shomrim, Yehudah had traveled by car to Chicago for a relative’s wedding, where he intended to play his flute. When he arrived, he was startled to find that the suitcases were not in the vehicle.

Though inconvenienced, he didn’t worry too much about it, since he assumed that they had been left at home. However, when he arrived home a few days later, he was horrified to discover that they were indeed missing.

Over the next two weeks, Yehuda searched high and low for the missing flute and gear. He even searched daily on Craigslist and Ebay to see if any would-be thief had listed one of the items for sale.

Today, July 7^th, Yehuda was reunited with his equipment. In attendance were the Shomrim volunteers who had responded to the original call – Chaim Perl, Mendy Hershkop and Gadi Hershkop – as well as the vigilant homeowners who alerted Shomrim to the suspicious activity – Moshe Rosenfeld.

There were tears in Yehuda’s eyes as he thanked all those who took part in facilitating the recovery and the return of the voluble items. He then related that yesterday, July 6^th, his 5-year-old son said to him “Tatty, I gave money to Tzedakah and asked Hashem that you should find the instrument.” A mere few hours later, he received a call from Chaim Perl that his flute and equipment had been found.