Updated | Man arrested in connection to Spectrum cable vandalism
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A man has been arrested in connection to vandalism of Spectrum-owned cable wires.
Michael C. Tolve, a 48-year-old resident of Wantagh, was arrested last night for the vandalism that resulted in a massive Spectrum outage for 60,000 residents in Forest Hills and Rego Park on June 26, according to authorities.
He was arrested around 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12, and was charged with Criminal Mischief. According to Charter Communications, Tolve is an employee of Spectrum.
It’s currently unclear if Tolve is also connected to the outage that occurred this past Tuesday.
Yesterday morning, City Comptroller Scott Stringer joined members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 to picket outside of the Upper West Side Spectrum/Time Warner Cable office over contract disputes.
Update: July 13, 4:57 p.m. – A comment from Charter Communication’s spokesman John Bonomo:
“It’s disappointing that one of our employees would unlawfully sabotage the infrastructure we all work so hard to maintain and inconvenience our customers in this way. We intend to support the prosecution of these crimes to the fullest extent of the law, as they put our customers’ well-being in jeopardy, cause local business to suffer, and are a general inconvenience for all. We’d like to thank the NYPD for its tireless work on this case and the many other investigations of vandalism to our facilities they have underway.”
Update: July 14, 11:51 a.m. – Charge dropped against Tolve
The Queens District Attorney has the dropped charge against Tolve. After confirming the arrest yesterday, an NYPD spokesperson could only confirm that Tolve’s arrest is “now sealed” this morning.
In a statement, the Queens District Attorney’s office said they are “declining to prosecute the case pending further investigation into the matter.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates and follow coverage at Forest Hills Times.
