Dan Kaufman, the man accused of stealing customers’ credit card info at several Brooklyn Heights eateries, now knows what it feels like to be on the wrong end of crime. According to the Brooklyn Paper, Kaufman returned home to find the locks changed at his apartment on Pierrepont Street. When a locksmith finally came and opened the door, he discovered that the place had been “ransacked.” The article doesn’t definitively say who’s responsible, but one possible suspect is Alan Young, Kaufman’s estranged business partner at the now-closed restaurants; Young just so happens to own the apartment that Kaufman rents. Also, Kaufman’s just a patsy – his lawyer says it was Young stealing the credit card info all along! more ›

Now that Busy Chef co-owner Dan Kaufman has been very publicly nabbed for allegedly stealing credit card information from his customers, other people who’ve been burned by the suspected Brooklyn Heights con man in Vermont and Boston have come forward. But Homer Fink at Brooklyn Heights blog, in a long post published Friday, says these former associates have been warning the world about Kaufman for some time now. And he blames the Brooklyn Paper and other media outlets for ignoring the story for too long:

Earlier in 2007, we thought it would be in the public interest to share the information we had with “professionals” who we felt would be better equipped to investigate and present the story. After all, we were a bunch of BLOGGERS doing this for fun and to meet our neighbors, not Woodward and Bernstein. We thought, the Mainstream Media would know how to handle a potentially juicy story like this, especially if it meant saving the citizens of Brooklyn Heights from becoming victims of fraud. Right? Not so much.

Dan Kaufman, the co-owner and manager of Busy Chef in Brooklyn Heights who stands accused of identity theft and credit card forgery, is out on bail thanks to his girlfriend, who put up $50,000 after a judge refused to believe that Kaufman's own bail money was obtained legally. A grand jury convened this week to hear the 19 charges against Kaufman, who allegedly charged a total of $24,978.53 to 19 customers' credit card accounts. The Brooklyn Paper reports that Kaufman also has a notorious reputation in Boston, where the landlord of a wine bar run by Kaufman was forced to sue him for unpaid rent. And a former supplier to Kaufman in Boston says “He screwed people three ways to Sunday. I don’t know how he does it — he can look at you smiling and lie to your face, and not even bat an eyelash.” more ›

This is any credit (or debit) card user's worst nightmare: Dan Kaufman, who manages Blue Pig ice cream, Oven pizza, Busy Chef and Wine Bar in Brooklyn Heights, was arrested for taking $25,000 from customers' credit cards. According to the Post, Kaufman would take "credit card slips from Wine Bar and Oven, and then ran them through again at his Busy Chef stores and an outlet on Court Street, pocketing the dough." Kaufman surrendered yesterday and Brooklyn Heights Blog reports the charges include various counts of identity theft and grand larceny. And remember: ALWAYS check your credit card statements. more ›