Judge calls #JoggerJoe ‘a threat’
Man accused of tossing homeless man’s belongings into Lake Merritt has bail set at $55K
OAKLAND >> A man who gained instant notoriety after he was caught on video throwing a homeless man’s belongings into Lake Merritt last week was deemed a “threat to safety” by a Superior Court judge who set his bail on robbery charges at $55,000, even as his lawyer asked for leniency.
Henry William Sintay — aka #JoggerJoe — was catapulted into Twitter infamy when — on a run around the lake Friday — stopped near the columns at the northeast shore and started scooping up food, clothing, and other items belonging to Greg Markson and tossing them into the water, over protests by passersby. A video of him went viral — even the BBC reported on them — asking if anyone knew who he was.
The next day he grabbed the cell phone of a man asking him about Markson’s things.
Sintay turned himself in to police Monday, and confessed to taking the phone, according to court documents. Although he was charged with second-degree robbery but not with taking Markson’s belongings, Superior Court Judge Mark McCannon said both incidents factored into his decision to not release Sintay out of jail without bail.
The actions of Henry William Sintay of Oakland “tell me he is a threat to safety,” McCannon said during a brief hearing Wednesday afternoon.
“I have two members of this community Mr. Sintay has mistreated,” McCannon said.
Sintay’s public defender, Shaylana Cleveland, said in court that her client has received death threats since the video went viral. Sintay has been “a transient himself” and had tried to help Markson in the past, she said.
Friends of Markson, have started a Go Fund Me drive to support him. It had raised nearly $16,000 by Wednesday afternoon.
The cell phone incident occurred Saturday as Sintay was seen fishing some of Markson’s things out of the lake.
An Oakland man, Matt Nelson, asked Sintay why he disturbed Markson’s campsite, streaming video of the conversation on Facebook Live, when Sintay suddenly grabbed his phone apparently unaware that the encounter was being broadcast live on social media.
Cleveland said that because he had received threats, Sintay was fearful when Nelson and others approached him asking questions.
“What goes on in his mind is that he is in jeopardy,” she told the judge. She also said he grabbed the phone with the intention of deleting the video because he didn’t want it on the internet.
It is not his first legal problem. Court records show Sintay was convicted in Riverside County in 2009 of transporting and selling marijuana and sentenced to three years probation. He pleaded no contest to an unspecified drug felony in Lake County in May of last year, and had previous legal cases in San Diego County, records show.
According to two of his neighbors, Sintay lives modestly in the ground floor apartment of a house on E. 27th Street, near Highland Hospital.
A sign that read “Hippies use the back door” hung on the apartment door Wednesday. Sintay’s Facebook profile says he also lives in Lower lake in Lake County
Maurice Morton, who lives next door, said he often sees Sintay hauling items in a truck and sometimes parking multiple cars on the street.
“He’s a nice guy, I don’t know anything bad about him,” Morton said.
Another neighbor, who did not wish to be identified, said Sintay has lived there for at least eight months and he “comes and goes” a lot, back and forth to Northern California.
What happened at Lake Merritt was “unfortunate … but I didn’t know it was Henry. Henry is OK with us,” the neighbor said.
The neighbor also said he/she understood the frustration over homeless camps and trash.
“It’s frustrating that nothing seems to change, it only gets worse,” the neighbor said. “But that’s the politics of this town.”
Markson was not at his usual spot at the lake Wednesday afternoon. But his belongings — pillows, toilet paper, sleeping bags, boxes of crackers — were piled up there. A woman stopped briefly and took several bottles of water from Markson’s belongings. A man walking a dog around the lake said he has no problem with homeless people there or anywhere else.
“I think the homeless should be able to sit wherever they want,” Gustavo Campus said. “It’s horrible how we treat the homeless.”