By Jane Prendergast
Enquirer staff writer

An investigation into dozens of stolen laptops led police, with help from eBay, to two men they believe were involved in computer thefts from downtown businesses.

Police arrested Daniel Wheelhouse, 42, of Fairfield, on Wednesday after he brought a laptop computer he'd sold on eBay downtown. He thought he was delivering the Hewlett Packard notebook computer to the wife of a local lawyer who bought it, but the woman was a police sergeant out of uniform.

He faces one charge of receiving stolen property. That laptop was stolen from a downtown lawyer, who helped police by pretending to buy it back over the Internet, said Capt. James Whalen, District 1 commander. In a search of Wheelhouse's house, he said, police found five laptops and some other items, all stolen from downtown.

In all, officials say, Wheelhouse allegedly sold 55 laptops, watches and other items on eBay since May.

On Thursday, officers arrested Blake Best, 43, of Wyoming, and charged him with receiving stolen property. He gave a Dell laptop valued at $800 to a confidential informant, court records said. The computer had been stolen from Catholic Social Services.

Both men were let out of jail on their own recognizance, or without posting any money. Wheelhouse went to prison in 1997, according to court records, for receiving stolen property.

Officers in District 1 started noticing an uptick in laptop thefts over the last several months, Whalen said. Comparing notes with other colleagues, they learned about increases in District 4 around Mount Auburn and in Blue Ash. He said he did not know how many more might be connected to these men.

Tracking down more of the laptops will be difficult, he said, because they were sold all over the country. Officials of eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., could not be reached for comment. On its Web site, the company says the key to eBay's success is trust and that the company takes very seriously its mission to deal only in legitimate sales.

"eBay was very helpful to us,'' Whalen said. "They were great to deal with."

David Ginsburg, president of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., praised the arrests, calling them "some excellent and clever" police work in an e-mail to DCI members Friday afternoon.

Whalen offered these tips to help prevent thefts:

• Question a person's presence in your building if their reason for being there isn't apparent. Many of the thefts happened late in the day and into the evening.

• Lock office doors.

• Write down the serial numbers of any computer equipment. Police have problems matching some stolen goods to rightful owners when the owners can't positively identify the items.

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E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com