You are hereClayton, Clayton, all I'm hearing about is Clayton!
Clayton, Clayton, all I'm hearing about is Clayton!
Update: If you knew James Clayton a reporter from the Austin-American Statesman wants to talk to YOU!
Hi ATXBX community,
I'm Isadora Vail, a reporter for the Statesman who is following this story. hope it's okay that I post here.
I was wanting to speak with someone who knew James, or had direct contact with him? Feel free to call me at the office at 445-3763 or email me at ivail@statesman.com.
Also, Austin Police Department said if you had a bike stolen from James to call them at 974-5978.Thanks for your help,
Isadora Vail, reporter
Austin American-Statesman
(512) 445-3763
ivail@statesman.com
Cops just released their official statement to the press:
APD makes arrest in high-end bicycle thefts
Thursday, February 5, 2009, 08:37 AM
From the Austin Police Department:
The Austin Police Department’s South Central Area Command Detectives arrested James Clayton, (DOB: 2-19-67), on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 in a string of high-dollar bicycle thefts.
Clayton has been arrested on four felony warrants. Three warrants are out of Maricopa County, Arizona for grand larceny (Theft of Bicycles) and one is out of Travis County, for burglary of a habitation in which two high-dollar bicycles were stolen.
In an on-going investigation detectives learned that Clayton became friends with his victims and then proceed to steal from them. Several victims contacted South Central Detectives and informed them that Clayton was preying on innocent friends and acquaintances. The victims assisted in linking Clayton, a well known bicycle and race trainer, to the selling of several stolen bicycles on the internet.
A search warrant was executed at Clayton’s residence on Woodrow Street. During the search, detectives recovered evidence that linked him to other burglary of habitation cases. A second search warrant was executed at a storage facility on Burnet Road where additional evidence was seized, including eight high-end bike frames. An estimated $60,000.00 worth of stolen bicycles and equipment were recovered in the two search warrants. Additional charges are currently pending against Clayton.
Detectives are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying additional victims and returning stolen items. Additionally, detectives are asking that anyone who knows Clayton or has had a high-end bicycle stolen to call (512) 974-5978.
I know, I know. This is old news to us, but I figure it might be of interest to some. I've seriously heard so much dirt on James Clayton in the past 48 hours it's ridiculous. People REALLY don't like this guy, and from the sound of things nearly everything about his racing career, his heart attack, and almost everything else to come out of his mouth in interviews and in person has been a complete fabrication. Also the number of theft accusations I've read or heard since breaking this story have been staggering. Dude, you really suck.
Hi, it's Rob D'Amico, League of Bicycling Voters guy and writer (http://www.damicoaustin.com). I'm also working on a story on James Clayton. So if you have any interesting information on the case or knew or interacted with him in any way, give me a shout: damico@damicoaustin.org or 627-1343.
This story was only covered by 2 TV stations last night and every TV station in town was there at the press conference today. They're just now getting around to it. Now I know why print media is dead.
Elliott from Austin Bike Blog
Oh sweet, I wish I could have made it to that press conference but you know how it goes with work and all. How was it? Anything interesting get discussed? They mention ATXBS? My website traffic's been blowing up (2.5x the page hits yesterday as the day before, which was over 1.5x the day before that) since breaking the story to the point that at times it's overloading the mysql database. It's nutty.
I don't know what hurts more, the sorry state of print media, or the sorry state of whatever it is that's coming down the pipes to replace it. I know it's kinda hypocritical, but I still have a hard time putting too much stock in something I read on someone's blog, no matter how much they try to polish it and pass it off as "news". Most of the time it's only a self-righteous opinion piece to me, my writing included.
Mostly it was just filling in details. Detective Askew did say that they've gotten one of the bikes back to an owner and that they thing they've got a very strong case against him.
Elliott from Austin on Two Wheels
Obviously some of his racing career is real, because people have seen him race and results are available on the web.
His heart attack, well, the only reason people really doubt that is because he seems to be a thief -- but that's a pretty good reason. Sure, the story was incredible, but we're inclined to believe it -- who would lie about a thing like that? At least until we learned that he has a reputation for being a con-man ...
As for the number of theft accusations, it would seem that he's now responsible for half the bikes stolen in Austin over the last 20 years! (And don't think I've forgotten that Huffy that was stolen from me 16 years ago!) But for most of it, the evidence is little more than `something was stolen, the theft was pretty brazen, he's accused of some brazen thefts, he must have done it!' And perhaps he did, but it sounds difficult to prove. [Unless the next step works ...]
I guess the next step is to get with Craigslist, eBay, and other similar sites and pull up everything he's ever listed for sale and compare it to reports of stuff stolen. I guess it all depends on how far back these places keep this sort of records, and how accurately they can find everything he's sold (perhaps everything on CL was under the same email address or had the same phone number?) Of course, eBay keeps track of who bought stuff too -- and if you buy stolen goods, you have to give them up when it's discovered. (Even if it's unknowingly. Knowingly, that's a crime -- then you give them up AND go to jail.) Perhaps his computer has the emails saved where he sold stuff on CL and other similar sites? Either way, depending on how hard the police push on this and how far back the records go, the fallout could be huge.
And since he seems to have made enough money at this to be supporting himself, I'll bet he wasn't properly reporting it as income. So if the bike theft charges aren't good enough, perhaps the IRS can come after him for tax evasion? Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison might be fun! It was good enough for Capone, it ought to be good enough for Clayton!
But yeah, his life is going to be interesting. I think I read somewhere that he's out on bail, but from some of the stuff I've seen online, if the wrong people find him he's looking at a serious beat-down at least, possibly more. And his house's location isn't a secret either. (And he's probably not there. But it could be vandalized.) Guilty or not, there's now a whole community after his ass, and while most of those people probably aren't violent, my guess is that more than a few are. The police must realize this -- I wonder if they're having to provide `protection' for him?
Hi ATXBX community,
I'm Isadora Vail, a reporter for the Statesman who is following this story. hope it's okay that I post here.
I was wanting to speak with someone who knew James, or had direct contact with him? Feel free to call me at the office at 445-3763 or email me at ivail@statesman.com.
Also, Austin Police Department said if you had a bike stolen from James to call them at 974-5978.
Thanks for your help,
Isadora Vail, reporter
Austin American-Statesman
(512) 445-3763
ivail@statesman.com
A lot of people have been saying very similar things about his heart attack and why it doesn't line up. Maybe it's true, but the conjecture that it isn't is far more interesting to me. There's someone digging for concrete evidence about his alleged racing and heart attack lies, and is going to keep me in the loop when they find it. Honestly I don't really care too much about the lies. I've been known to tell a tall tale or two from time to time myself. The thieving is the big thing to me, and what I hope he's convicted and jailed for.
I'm not talking about the "My bike was stolen, it must be him!" stories. I've actually heard a good number of "he came to my house, looked at my bike, made comments about my other bikes, and a week later I had $4k of gear stolen", as well as lots of people he befriended and then jacked like the following excerpt from a conversation earlier this morning:
Freaking CRAZY!