Catching up after 6 months, plus independent confirmation

Well, it’s been 6 months now since Remi lived at our house and stole that stuff from us. Honestly we hardly think about what happened, except when people bring it up, which isn’t often. We replaced the stuff that he stole and managed to reconstruct the film that was presumed lost when one of our hard drives was taken. The photos and other things that were on the drives are gone, but it’s fine, not the end of the world.

As of late there have been some emails though asking about the conclusion to the story, so we’ll catch you up:

Not surprisingly, our efforts to solicit help from the New York Police fell on completely deaf ears. Even after we filed the proper paperwork and offered to assist them, they tried to immediately close the case, and after we insisted they do something about it, we ended up having a phone conversation in which they told me that due to the nature of the evidence and the fact that it wasn’t very much money, they weren’t going to do anything. Of course this is not surprising, but still, pretty annoying.

Since the cops wouldn’t even give us a police report, even after we mailed away to Albany for it, we were unable to fulfill the requirements of couchsurfing.com to have Remi removed. We did write true accounts of how he ripped us off on his profile, and he responded by writing lies about how we threw guests out of our house in the middle of the night and other such nonsense. People continue to stay at our house though, so obviously his falsehoods were too ridiculous to be believable.

Remi’s facebook and myspace pages are now set to the highest privacy setting, meaning no one can look at his profiles unless he is friends with them. For a social networking addict, we hope this is a hardship for him.

Half a year after Remi ripped us off, our blog is still the first thing that comes up when you search for his name, and the topic of him being a thief dominates the first page of google results. This was one of the reasons we started writing this in the first place, to try and shame/influence him to return or replace our stuff, but as of yet he still has not contacted us.

One person who has contacted us is a friend of Remi named Romain Yvorra. He sent us a threatening email, pasted below. Our guess is that he is french, so you’ll have to excuse his atrocious english:

i dont know if you are the same dan gingold...if is not you sorry for what following...but if you are the soon of the bitch who make trubble to my friend remi let me to say you only thing: stop it now or you will be in a very very big shit...in your blog you dont see all the true...if you are courageous expalin in your blog all the story...and dont forget you are a little shitman and we can do to you a big damage..you are nothing and we are some many people in the world who can shoot you..now i knox you ,juste a little, dont loose your time to answer me i fed up you life and what you said..but becarfull man we watching you..me too have a good friend who work in google...the show must go on...to be continu

PS if you want a some i pod i thing you can see on e-bay!!

good by fucker

While he hasn’t contacted us, Remi did contact one of our friends, Andrew, threatening him with legal action for defamation if Andrew did not remove a post linking to our blog. Though we all agreed that defamation charges made from France would be all but impossible to pursue, Andrew changed the posting to read that Remi was an alleged thief.

Then, in an example of how small the world is, we got a very interesting email from a friend of a friend:

i was staying at the same hostel as (Remi) in Nicaragua. he is a nice enough guy, although i did find it strange that he had been traveling/living abroad for such a long time...he seemingly had no actual work or school commitments. i spent a fair amount of time talking to him and after a few days asked him if he was on facebook...he replied that he was but that he would have to find me, because he had a very high level of security on his profile. i asked him why and that's when he told me his account of the whole tale.

basically he said that he had been subletting a place in brooklyn and that you american guys were very mean to him. specifically he said that you were assholes to him and "intimidated" him on multiple occasions (editor’s note: bullshit). remi, who views himself as sort of this hippie-ish guy, said that he normally would not retaliate in such a situation but in this case it was just too much and he finally did something to "get back at you guys." so he took your ipods, external harddrive, etc., and threw them in the trash. he knows that you reported it to the police and was actually somewhat concerned about entering the U.S. again, but figured that there were most likely no real consequences for his actions because you have no hard evidence that he stole your stuff. he also told me that you guys had even made a website to get back at him. i actually pressed him for more details on what exactly you guys did to him to warrant this treatment, and he basically said that he didn't want to talk about it.

personally i found the entire thing really crazy. especially completely fucked up (and also crazy) that remi would take people's valuable electronics and throw them away as the result of what basically sounded like some sort of interpersonal conflict.

There you have what we take as pretty conclusive proof that Remi did steal our stuff.

Looking back at the early blog entries we made, it’s easy to see how angry we were by what Remi did. Perhaps we used language that was juvenile and called him a douche too many times in the video we made, but we were frustrated with our lack of options. Many criticized us for pursuing Remi through internet means, but after reading the above email and seeing confirmation from Remi himself about how he trashed our stuff, perhaps you’ll be more inclined to agree that, given our limited means of recourse, we were in the right. On the internet all you are are your name and your reputation, and though the recourse of sullying his name won’t return our stuff, perhaps it might serve as a lesson.

No Denials

It's Monday morning, one week since the discovery of the thefts committed by Remi Pinaud.  A Google search of Remi Pinaud reveals that 8 of the 10 items listed are related to his thieving ways (in French language Google it's 6 out of 10 items listed).   The main intended aim of this blog is to shame young Remi into returning our stolen property or at least dealing with his actions and finding a way to make it right, and we hope that this pressure will convince him to finally take some appropriate steps.  As of now though, we still haven't heard one word from Mr. Pinaud, even though he was logged onto couchsurfing.com and myspace as of yesterday, and is receiving plenty of emails from our friends and supports (Thanks everyone!).  There have been no denials of his crime by him or even by a close friend of his who has posted in the comments section of this blog.  If he were innocent or had the slightest hope of feigning innocence, one would expect some sort of rebuttal, perhaps even an alibi.  Obviously, this is not the case.  As another commenter noted, not engaging amounts to nothing more than "guilty silence."  

Also of note in the comments section, pushback against our efforts to shame Remi into acting honestly about his larcenous acts have somehow been inflated into anti-american sentiment.  While there is no denial from this new contingent that Remi committed the crime, somehow there is the argument that he was justified in doing so.  Further obfuscating the conversation is the problem of having to decipher these inklings through the lens of Google Translation.  Here's a taste: 

You certainly deserve this just happen to you, and see all the energy that you deploy for the sole purpose to satisfy your desire for vengeance, namely the social rot Mr Pinaud, who is not a thief, I better understand his reaction, even if I do not approve.

and

It is no longer here to defend Rémi, who has committed a huge ball and unfortunately that is not forgivable (that's what I try, among other things to explain from the beginning), but to see how far your bad faith and your aggressiveness can take you.

these comments were made by one Sébastien, who I'm certain doesn't even know Remi, and just wanted to be part of a flame war.  Maybe he feels obliged to defend his countryman.  Whatever the reason, the repartee has been rather amusing, really, and I encourage you to look at the comments from the other blog postings, if nothing more than for a snicker.

While this is good and all, it doesn't help retrieve our stuff or bring Remi to justice.  Besmirching someone's name is shallow consolation for the loss of our intellectual property.  To that end, we entreat anyone who knows Remi to speak with him and arrange for the return of our equipment, or for some due compensation.  And I'm looking at you, Emmanuel Levy, a man who, after we were kind enough to host him on our couch, first denied that he is good friends with Remi:

hello dan
i must say i don't know a thing about what you say.
i guess remi and i are not close friends enough for this kind of things.

and then followed up with 

Levy E said...

i know rémi. he's my friend.

whatever he did to you. this website, it's content and your behavior makes me want to throw up.

know you can erase this comment you fascist idiots.
or you can make a website about me.

As commenter Andrew pointed out, Emmanuel doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on the definition of fascist.  Also, note the admission of guilt, "whatever he did to you."  That's telling. I'll spare you Emmanuel's last posting, which made some suggestive homoerotic accusations (Sorry Emmanuel, not my thing), and instead request that Emmanuel, email your friend Remi and tell him to do the right thing.  

further explanation

So there’s been some comments on this blog and on couchsurfing.com stating that we are calling out Remi in an unfair way. It is being said that our reaction is disproportionate, that we don’t have sufficient proof, that we are being vindictive. I’m going to have to disagree with this viewpoint, and below I’ll elaborate my rationale.

Evidence: I’ll elaborate on what has already been written on our blog about how the only person who could have stolen our stuff was Remi.

• There are only two keys to the apartment; one that we share and one that Remi failed to return to us. We securely locked the door with our only key when we left the house on Sunday, January 4th.

• Upon returning that afternoon, the living room window was open. Because New York is cold this time of year, we made certain to close all windows before we left. During his stay here, Remi made it a habit to leave one window open so that he could smoke, even after we asked him not to. Remi left that window open again when he entered illegally on Sunday, January 4th.

• The items stolen were iPods, two portable hard drives and digital cameras. The stolen items were things with which Remi was familiar and which could be sold easily. One of the two stolen hard drives contained an original, copyright protected documentary film, the result of more than 80 hours of labor. This film was pending release to several film festivals. The second hard drive contained data from an international study in Tanzania used in that country's HIV/AIDS and Malaria education initiatives. This data is irreplaceable. The potential repercussions to the health initiative are serious.

• Remi frequently spoke with us about his financial problems. Although his parents support him, he was unable to pay November rent, due on the 1st of the month, until the 21st. We believe part of the reason Remi had money troubles was because he was spending between $100 and $150 a week on marijuana. he had also spoken about the need to purchase more expensive camera equipment for is upcoming trip to China.

• As soon as we became aware of what happened, we attempted to call and email Remi. Though he was in the United States for two days after we discovered the theft, he refused to communicate with us. He still refuses to respond to our emails. Furthermore, Remi has broken contact with us on Facebook, a social networking website.

If he were innocent, why would he not contact us to refute our claims, or at least to talk with us? If you are in contact with him tell him to write to us or call us.


As for the charge that we are being vindictive, what other redress do you suggest? We are indeed following the legal route, but the system is slow moving and for losses of 1,300 dollars the police are unlikely to do anything. What more, Remi is not an american, and if he doesn’t come back here there is nothing legally that we can do. The loss of our intellectual work on those hard drives is extremely frustrating, and we are unwilling to just write it off to bad luck. Whatever the interpersonal difficulties we had while living with Remi, and I assure you that from our perspective they stemmed from him as much if not much more than they stemmed from us, stealing from people is wrong. If Remi were to contact us and arrange to return out stolen property, all of this would be over. Unfortunately, it is most likely that he has already sold our stuff, wiped the drives clean of all of our hard work. If you feel our response disproportionate, consider having work that you had invested long hours in taken away by a thief.

As for the comments about us being cruel monolingual Americans, I speak fluent Spanish and Peter speaks Swahili, and none of this would have ever happened had Remi not stolen our property. Don’t blame the victims.

Remi Pinaud is a Thief on Youtube

We made a short video about Remi the thief. Check it out.



We'll have some more updates later on today, including our rejoinders with an associate of Remi.

Remi cancels his Facebook, soon to get kicked off couchsurfing.com

After only one day of internet investigation and pressure, Remi Pinaud has seemingly decided to cancel his Facebook account. This is a disappointment to us, because there were many innocent Chinese women listed there who he'd contacted about his upcoming "movie plans" in China. While we would have liked to have written each and every one of them and told them what a piece of shit he is, we are glad to see that he will have a harder time doing so as well.

We're well on our way to getting Remi kicked off of couchsurfing.com. We've filed complaints against him, and as soon as we get our police report (probably this thursday), we're sending it to them. Couchsurfing has a member dispute team, and I'm confident they will agree that thieves like Remi Pinaud deserve to be banned from communities that value honesty and respect.

Peter has been emailing with Remi's sister. After his first email, she responded with disbelief, so he sent this well crafted email back to her:

Thank you for your response Lea. I know you don't know us and it's hard to believe, but unfortunately it is true. Remi has removed his facebook page and still has not contacted us, returned the keys to our apartment, or returned our stolen things. He is on the run from us and from the new york city police. There is no reason we would spend this much energy if this were not true. I was very good to remi while he was staying with me - frequently helping him out and loaning him money and he repays me by stealing $1300 worth of electronics. I encourage you to tell your parents and for them to get in touch with us. You can find more information about what happened at remipinaudisathief.blogspot.com

We can only imagine him trying to explain away all of this to his parents. Especially the police report.

Down in Panama, some friends of ours have the mug shot that you see at the top of this post. They'll be on the lookout.

Many thanks to Andrew for buying some google ads linking his name to our blog. Already, when you search "Remi Pinaud," this blog comes up as the third listing.  Link it on your own websites, let's take it all the way to number one. 

later on this week we'll add to our team with some french experts who'll help us search for more information about him on french language websites.  

If anyone reading this wants to join in this quest for redemption, please contact us.  We need folks who know the advanced ways of the internets, folks who want to compose songs, raps, ballads or haikus, and of course, folks to send Remi emails, demanding satisfaction.  Now more than ever, we need your help.  

coming soon: Remi Pinaud is a Thief goes multimedia.

The Whole Story about how Remi is a thief

In early November of 2008, my friend Peter Benziger took the advice of a friend of his and offered the second bedroom in his 2 bedroom apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to a french "film maker" named Remi Pinaud. Remi was 25, a slight, unshaven man with a silly asymmetrical haircut.
In mid November, I returned to Brooklyn from a trip on the west coast with the plan of living in Peter's apartment. We decided that I was to stay on the couch until Remi left to go spend the money of his parents in Panama and Central America (to quote him, "my parents support me."). I would sleep on the couch, and though the apartment is a bit small, no big deal.
At first things were fine. I began working part time again and Peter continued at his job and finished applying to med schools. Remi spent nearly all day either in his bedroom or on the couch, intoxicated and listening to loud and bad electronic music.
As the weeks wore on though, several ridiculous things about Remi began to surface. He was a big proponent of couchsurfing.com and hospititalityclub.org, sites that he used to try and sleep with women whom he'd invite over to stay. He spoke constantly about himself: his film career, all the movies he was going to make, all the hip hop groups and djs and bands he knew. He was one of the worst name droppers I've ever met. He also left the house a mess, with half eaten croissants, countless plastic Evian bottles, and loose tobacco strewn everywhere.
Eventually, after nearly a month living with him and not having him ask one question about me, I lost all interest in interacting with Remi. I made this clear, and he discontinued regaling me with tales of his little life.
But things in the house got worse. Remi insisted on smoking spliffs in the house, and he would leave the window wide open to do so. This was better than having him smoke up the entire room, but with the December temperatures down in the teens, it was extremely expensive to have the heater on with all the heat blowing out the window. Unperturbed, Remi would leave the window open long after he was finished smoking and then crank the heat up to 80 degrees. the heating bill for the first half of December was 200 dollars.
Finally the year ended and it came time for Remi to leave. He told us that his flight to Panama was on the 6th, and we agreed to let him sleep on the couch until that day, rent free. On the 3rd, however, while we were gone, he cleaned out all of his possessions from our apartment and left, but neglected to leave us the key. No matter, we thought, even though we all weren't getting along so great at the end, he was leaving and it was fine. Peter texted him about getting the key back.
Then, Remi showed his true colors. On Sunday, January 4th, sometime between the hours of noon and 6:30 pm while Peter and I were on a bike ride in Staten Island, Remi came over to our apartment and stole Peter's Ipod, portable hard drive and digital camera, my Ipod and portable hard drive and my friend Dave's Ipod. All told, we calculated the cost of the devices at over 1,300 dollars. This small dollar value, however, does not include all the music, documents, photographs and creative work that was lost with the hard drives, much of it irreplaceable.

How do we know that it was Remi who stole our things?
1. There are only 2 keys to our apartment. One of them is shared by Peter and I, and Remi had the other one. Even the landlord company does not have a copy.
2. That Sunday, Peter and I made certain to lock the door before we left. We took our copy of the key with us.
3. When Peter returned home at 6:30, he noticed that Remi's favorite window had been left open. We know for a fact that we closed it before we left.

At first we took it as a big "screw you" that he had come back and left the window open, a sour ending to an uncomfortable living situation. Then the next morning, on Monday, January 5th, we realized why he had really been over. After looking through the entire apartment and cataloguing all that he had stolen from us, we were livid. We attempted to call Remi on the phone, but big surprise, he didn't answer, and the voicemail was disconnected. Peter discovered that Remi had unfriended him on Facebook, and though we attempted to email him, he did not respond.

We called in the police, who came by and took a police report. Candidly, they said that even though it was grand larceny, it was a long shot of ever getting our stuff back, or even any compensation for our stuff. and probably, they were correct.

That said, this is 2009, and like most people, Remi is a citizen of the internet. What more, from what we saw he didn't really do anything with his time besides screw around online. A little searching around turned up a bunch of leads into his internet presence, and with luck we'll be able to uncover a whole lot more. Like most of us, Remi has a community on the internet, a community who we're going to make sure knows that he's a thief.

This, in essence, is the reason for this blog, to chronicle our investigation into the sordid, sad life of Remi Pinaud. As we track him, we'll provide you with glimpses of who he is, what he looks like, and where you can send him emails telling him that here in Brooklyn we demand compensation, either our possessions back (not likely) or financial remuneration. With your help, we will demand satisfaction.