Man Has No Regrets After Arrest For Tampering With Long Island Red-Light Cameras

A 42-year-old Centereach man was arrested Tuesday afternoon after he tampered with red-light cameras in Ronkonkoma, pointing them upwards so that they would not capture violators, but Stephen Ruth certainly isn’t apologizing.

“To all the people thinking “why would he do that? Didn’t he think he was going to get arrested?” Ruth wrote on his Facebook page early Wednesday. “Of course I knew I would be arrested. I did it for the people who come back from war and get abused by these cameras. I did it because senior citizens are getting these, the same ones that went to war for us.”

Police say Ruth tampered with a camera at Ocean Avenue and the Long Island Expressway South Service Road on Aug. 21 and Aug. 24. On Tuesday afternoon, he tampered with two cameras located at Hawkins Avenue and the Long Island Expressway South Service Road in Ronkonkoma.

At 3:41 p.m. Tuesday, Ruth posted on Facebook, “I just hit Hawkins and LIE, two cameras at the same time.” At 3:56 p.m., he was arrested at his home.

Police say they received anonymous tips regarding a video posted on social media that shows Ruth tampering with the cameras and seemingly encouraging others to do the same.

“I’m going to show you how easy it is to take the power back,” Ruth says in the video. ”It doesn’t take more than a minute and the gratification is huge.”

After he uses an expandable pole to push a camera skyward, he boosts, “I just saved people about $10,000 today.”

Ruth says the camera in the video has “got me numerous times.”

“Who is to say I need to wait three seconds after I clearly see there’s no one coming in my direction,” he says. “This is government taking advantage and it’s gonna stop.”

The cameras are maintained by the Baltimore-based Affiliated Computer Services Incorporated. Suffolk County took in more than $17 million from its red-light camera program in 2013, according to Newsday.

Ruth is charged with four counts of third degree criminal tampering and four counts of second degree obstruction of government administration. He was released Tuesday night and is due in court on Oct. 27, he wrote on Facebook.