Cam Newton, Lame Laptop Thief

NOVEMBER 9--Two years ago--before all the Heisman Trophy talk and the stories about cash solicitations and alleged academic misconduct--Cameron Newton was copping to possessing a computer that was stolen from a fellow University of Florida student.

Newton, now the star quarterback at second-ranked Auburn University, was arrested in November 2008 and charged with grand theft, burglary, and obstructing justice in connection with the boosting of Paul Loschak’s Dell laptop. After Newton, now 21, admitted being in possession of the hot computer, he was placed into a pre-trial intervention program that ended last December with all charges against him being dropped.

A University of Florida Police Department report, excerpted here, details how investigators tracked the stolen laptop to the athlete, and how Newton tossed the computer out his dorm window in a humorously ill-advised attempt to hide it from cops (a friend scooped up the laptop and hid it behind a dumpster at a nearby school building).

As cops were about to search his room, Newton (then a backup to Florida QB Tim Tebow) was overheard on a cell phone telling someone, “There was a computer and I took it.” After noting that he had thrown the laptop out of the window, Newton remarked, “Huh! Cuz, they 'bout to search my room.” The football star is pictured in the above mug shot.

After the athlete was placed under arrest, he was handcuffed and walked to a patrol car. That is when Newton’s phone--which had been seized by cops--began vibrating with a series of text messages from accomplice Cesar Perez, who had retrieved the computer from beneath Newton’s window. Unaware that his buddy was in custody, Perez assured Newton that cops, “did not have shit and if they did, he would be under arrest.” Perez advised that Newton should “keep denying it.”

Other records show that when Newton and his father complained about a grand theft charge being filed against the collegiate star, a prosecutor wrote Newton’s lawyer to remind him that his client had already been given “many concessions,” including the dropping of a felony burglary charge and the government’s agreement to allow Newton into a pre-trial intervention program. (6 pages)