The jury that hears the case next month of a Columbia teen-ager charged with stealing 12 vehicles last winter will likely get a lesson on how to swipe a car using just a screwdriver.
At a Howard Circuit Court hearing yesterday, the prosecution was given permission to use a confession by Christopher James Peca, who told police how he and six other youths made off with four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokees and Chevrolet Blazers from East Columbia.
Mr. Peca told Detective George Glorioso that all he needed to steal acar was a screwdriver.
"It's like a seminar on how to steal a car," Judge Dennis Sweeney said of Mr. Peca's statements. "It sounded like [the detective] was getting an education."
Mr. Peca, 18, of the 9300 block of Afternoon Lane in the Owen Brown village, is to stand trial Jan. 9 on 96 charges related to the theft of a dozen vehicles and the attempted theft of five others last December.
The prosecution contends that Mr. Peca belonged to a club called the Low Riders that stole 20 vehicles between Dec. 25 and Jan. 3.
Some were taken on joy-rides to Lake Elkhorn in Owen Brown, where the participants would play "crash-up derby" and "bumper cars," police said.
Judge Sweeney ruled in November that Mr. Peca's confession was admissible as evidence, but the defense attorney asked the judge yesterday to exclude parts of the statement from being presented to a jury.
Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Osterman sought to exclude portions of Mr. Peca's statements in which he described his method for stealing vehicles, and crimes involving other youths.
Mr. Peca, who was 17 at the time of the incidents, told police that he would use a screwdriver to carefully pry open the driver's side window so the glass would not shatter and make noise.
He then would pry open the steer- ing column to get to the ignition wires to start the car. He said that his method only worked on vehicles with tilt-wheel steering columns.
Mr. Peca described how some of his co-defendants begged him reveal his methods so they could get vehicles on their own. Instead of telling them how to steal the cars, Mr. Peca said, he just showed them.
"I said, 'I'd rather you just watch, because it's easier that way,' " Mr. Peca told Detective Glorioso.
Assistant State's Attorney Daniel Vaccaro argued yesterday that the prosecution should be permitted to use Mr. Peca's confession in its entirety because it shows how he intended to commit crimes.
Mr. Vaccaro, calling Mr. Peca a "master thief," asserted that Mr. Peca was the leader of the theft ring. "He was the individual who started stealing the cars and doling them out," he said.
But Ms. Osterman argued that the portions of Mr. Peca's confession relating to methods of theft and crimes committed by co-defendants should be suppressed. She said they have nothing to do with the crimes with which Mr. Peca is charged.
"It merely is a gratuitous discussion of other crimes," Ms. Osterman said. "There is no evidence of a grand scheme."
Mr. Peca is the last member of the Low Riders to go to trial. In recent months, four co-defendants have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to two years after accepting plea agreements.
A fifth defendant who also reached a plea bargained is to be sentenced next month.
Another defendant, a 16-year-old boy, was prosecuted in juvenile court. The outcomes of juvenile cases are not disclosed.