East Northport Man Charged With Copper Wire Heist

An East Northport man broke into the old Nassau County in Plainview Wednesday and was caught with a trunk full of copper wire, Nassau County Police said Thursday.

Detectives said George Taylor, 51, of Roosevelt Avenue, East Northport, was spotted about noon Wednesday at the old Nassau County property off Old Country Road. Eighth Precinct officers, during a routine patrol, observed Taylor's trunk filled with copper wire, a power saw, pry bars and gloves, police said.

The sprawling property is now owned by Charles Wang, who also owns the NHL's New York Islander's. It was once home to the county's long-since abandoned isolation hospital once belonging to Nassau County. The county's still operates at the site, but the TB hospital was abandoned in the 1960s.

Nassau police entered the old ward and learned the copper wire had been removed from the ruins of one of the neo-Georgian buildings, police said.  In it's various forms, copper can be valuable and sold as scrap to dealers.

Taylor faces charges of burglary, criminal possession of stolen property,  and possession of burglary tools. He was scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court  in Hempstead Thursday.

The Nassau County Sanitarium was built in the early 1930s to isolate tuberculosis patients from the rest of the population. TB still kills millions of people in the developing world, according to the World Health Organization. Tuberculosis was brought under control in the West during the mid-part of the 20th Century. Nassau County closed the hospital in the early 1960s.

The triangle-shaped 140 acre parcel south and west of the split of Old Country and Round Swamp roads is now private property owned by Wang since 1999.  o develop the site have been aired and some resulted in heated public debate.