Lifehack for robbers: don't wear a sweatshirt emblazoned with your fraternity's name, and your pledge name, when you mug someone. And if you do, hope that video of the crime never gets posted online. Not quite a day after commenters on Gawker and elsewhere identified him as the assailant in newly-released footage of a violent subway mugging in March, Brooklyn resident Aidan Folan, 21, was arrested and charged with robbery and assault.
Though the mugging took place March 9, police didn't publicly release surveillance camera footage until Tuesday. Internet detectives quickly took over, working off the video and NYPD's announcement that the suspect was wearing a black hoodie with the Greek letters Alpha Phi Delta on one side and the word "Stugots" on the other. ("Stugots" is Italian slang for "balls.")
After we posted the video last night, a commenter using the handle "secretsout" posted a link to Folan's Facebook page, writing "link to most likely suspect. take care of business guys." A quick look through his public photos revealed that Folan, a broadcast journalism major who graduated from St. Francis College last year, had been wearing a black Alpha Phi Delta sweatshirt on the night of March 8, hours before the robbery. "Stugotz" appeared to be his pledge name. One commenter noted that the figure in the video was wearing a purple bracelet, and that Folan had a purple bracelet in several recent photos. Another matched a keyring caribiner Folan was wearing to one that the mugger in the video had on his belt.
The information spread: commenters at New York's Daily Intel had also found Folan. And Folan's Facebook page. His photos were flooded with comments linking to the Gawker story and speculating how long it'd be before he was arrested:
We've reached out to the NYPD for comment, and will update with any statements.