Jury acquits man tied to burglary of Ubisoft headquarters
A San Francisco jury acquitted a man of felony burglary charges related to a July break-in at the downtown headquarters of a gaming company, the city’s Public Defender’s Office announced Tuesday.
Public defenders claimed the San Francisco Police Department “carried out an incomplete investigation that was riddled with confirmation bias and ignored the fact that the evidence did not support the allegations” against defendant David Wesser, 37. Wesser has been booked at least 17 times on burglary charges in recent years, according to the San Francisco Sheriff ’s Office. In 2019, sheriff ’s deputies shot him in the hand and killed his dog, Ruby, after the deputies arrived at his Polk Street hotel room to arrest him for a missed court date related to burglary charges.
Police arrested Wesser in late July after surveillance footage showed three people burglarizing the Third Street office of the game company Ubisoft. According to public defenders, police officers spotted some of the stolen property on a sidewalk and detained Wesser, who was sitting nearby in clothes that resembled those of one of the people in the video of the burglary.
“As soon as police had it in mind that Mr. Wesser was involved in the incident, they neglected to investigate any further and ignored all evidence contrary to their erroneous theory,” Deputy Public Defender Christopher Garcia said in a statement.
Public defenders argued in court that the arresting officers failed to retrieve footage from street surveillance cameras that would have proved Wesser’s alibi and failed to collect fingerprints and other evidence from the Ubisoft office or the stolen property. The defense also pointed out inconsistencies in the surveillance footage, including “that the person in the video did not appear to have a tattoo whereas Wesser does,” according to the statement.
The San Francisco Police Department and the district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“While circumstantial evidence can play an important role in many cases, what we saw here was police who neglected to complete an investigation that could have eliminated Mr. Wesser as a suspect,” San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju said in a statement.