An 18-year-old Chinese exchange student managed to break into Steph Curry’s Atherton mansion, and we’re only learning of it nearly two months after the fact because the suspect failed to show up for his court date.

A story last week from the Palo Alto Daily Post showed that someone recently made stunningly easy work of breaking into Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry’s mansion in Atherton. On Friday, the Palo Alto Daily Post reported that an intruder broke into Steph and Ayesha Curry’s home, in an incident that happened way back on October 15. And the only reason we’re learning of this is that the suspect, 18-year-old Chinese exchange student Sheng Gao, failed to show up for his December 7 court date at San Mateo County Superior Court.

The caper was incredibly unsophisticated, albeit also unsuccessful, as Gao was reportedly just seeking Curry’s autograph. According to KPIX, Gao took a bus from his home in Cupertino that day, and once arriving in Atherton, he merely asked a neighbor which house was Steph Curry’s. The neighbor told him!

Gao reached the home, and per KPIX, he pushed the security gate’s ‘call’ and ‘ring’ buttons, and the front gate opened right up for him. SFGate spoke to San Mateo County DA Steve Wagstaffe, who said law enforcement “looked at the gate code records and it suggested it could have already been open” when Gao made his way in.

Gao was confronted by an on-duty nanny. “She then told him to leave and… he walked out,” Wagstaffe told SFGate. KPIX adds that Gao was then spotted by law enforcement while walking along El Camino Real, and was given a citation for one count of misdemeanor aggravated trespassing.

“Aggravated trespassing is when you enter into the residence of somebody who is there,” Wagstaffe told SFGate. “It’s not a burglary, because to be a burglary we have to show the intent was to steal something.”

That citation instructed Gao to appear in San Mateo County Superior Court on December 7. He didn’t show up. Judge Donald Ayoob issued Gao a $500 bench warrant, which means Gao can be arrested at any time and his bail will be $500. He remains at large.

Neither Steph nor Ayesha Curry was home at the time of the October 15 incident. But the Currys’ three children were home (and that includes our old favorite Riley Curry, now 11 years old), though prosecutors say that Gao did not take anything with him, nor did he attempt to.

Related: Steph and Ayesha Curry Oppose New Multi-Family Housing Near Home in Exclusive South Bay Town [SFist]

Image: TOKYO, JAPAN - OCTOBER 01: Stephen Curry arrives at the newly opened UNDER ARMOUR Curry Court on October 1, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Jun Sato/GC Images)

Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry and his wife Ayesha have apparently come out against new affordable housing in the wealthy Bay Area city of Atherton where they live, the Mercury News reported.

Atherton, California, has been named as the most expensive ZIP code in the U.S. to own a home for the past three years, according to CNBC, with a median home price of $9 million.

The town had reportedly faced criticism for its lack of affordable housing and the city council had agreed to rezone parts of the town to allow for more earlier this month after much controversy. A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for next week. Mercury News reported that an Atherton landowner near the border with Redwood City was interested in constructing multiple units on his property, but some councilmembers and residents worry about an increase in traffic.

The Currys, some of the city’s most high-profile residents, have reportedly also voiced their concerns about safety and privacy, calling for the process to be stopped before it even begins.

Mercury News obtained a copy of an email that the Currys reportedly sent to Atherton mayor Mayor Bill Widmer and City Manager George Rodericks. It reads:

“We hesitate to add to the ‘not in our backyard’ (literally) rhetoric, but we wanted to send a note before today’s meeting,” the couple wrote just hours before the Atherton City Council convened to discuss revisions to its 2023-2031 housing element. Due Jan. 31, the plan lays out how the affluent burg will meet a state mandate to increase its supply of affordable, multi-family housing over the next eight years … We kindly ask that the town adopts the new housing element without the inclusion of 23 Oakwood (Blvd.). Should that not be sufficient for the state, we ask that the town commits to investing in considerably taller fencing and landscaping to block sight lines onto our family’s property.”

According to the Chronicle, the Currys might not get to have too much of a say. If the town fails to adopt a plan for affordable housing by the end of the month that was approved by state authorities, the California Department of Housing and Community Development could step in and take over decision-making, the Chronicle reported.

Atherton Mayor Bill Widmer told the Chronicle in an e-mail that, “I cannot comment as I do not know what the Council will vote on as we respond to the State’s mandate to produce housing in a fully built out community.”

Image via Getty Images/Matt Winkelmeyer.

Investigators in the bizarre buried Mercedes-Benz case in Atherton have concluded the whole thing was a case of insurance fraud, and lo and behold, the car’s late owner Johnny Bocktune Lew collected a cool $87,000 after reporting the car stolen in 1992.

True crime fans have been been having a ball these last two weeks with the offbeat case of a buried Mercedes-Benz found deep underground in an Atherton yard, after it was discovered by a team of landscapers at the property on 351 Stockbridge Avenue in the wealthy San Mateo County community. The vehicle had been “stolen,” or should we say, it had been reported stolen in Palo Alto in 1992 by its owner Johnny Bocktune Lew, whom parenthetically neighbors described as a “crook,” and whose own daughter said her father was “sketchy.” (Lew had also been convicted in 1999 for insurance fraud for paying undercover agents to sink his own $1.2 million yacht.)  

The car was removed the next day, and also a veil was removed revealing that Lew had done time for second-degree murder in the 1960s, and attempted murder in the 1970s. Though in terms of murders and such, no human remains were found in the vehicle.

But there was definitely a crime committed in all this. KTVU reports that investigators have determined the whole thing was insurance fraud, as the car had never actually been stolen.

And it was kind of a tell, four days into this whole mystery, when San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the Bay Area News Group that the now-deceased Lew had collected $87,000 in insurance money for the car that was, you know, buried on his own property. Initial reports had suggested some other owner of the vehicle who was deceased.

The Chronicle has the fun additional detail that the Mercedes “was filled with bags of unused concrete.”

Lew is long dead, and the family moved out of the house in 2014. According to Zillow, the place last sold for $15 million in March 2020. Will this whole crazy affair help or hurt the property's value? Well, its current Zillow “Zestimate” is now $18.3 million, and its value may be helped by the publicity, or the fact that you just never know what you might find there.

Related: Mystery Unfolding In Atherton As Mercedes Is Found Buried In Yard, Likely From 30 Years Ago [SFist]

Image: Zillow

After landscapers found an old Mercedes-Benz convertible buried at an Atherton estate this past Thursday, a media frenzy grew around why it was hidden. Well, police Saturday completely excavated the car and have sent it to a crime lab to help give more details around the whole situation.

We've been keeping tabs on the mysteries (and increasingly strange history behind the former owner of the 12,634-square-foot home) swirling around this 1990s Benz (that was later shown to be reportedly stolen in 1992) since Thursday. What we know is that Johnny Bocktune Lew, who was the former owner of the home, was not only charged with insurance fraud back in 1999 but was also convicted of 2nd-degree murder in 1966... and convicted of attempted murder in 1977.

Lew's criminal history has only fueled accusations as to why this looted Benz was buried. Authorities are still unclear as to why the car was put underground, but they're hoping questions will be answered upon further criminal review of the car.

According to NBC Bay Area, the vehicle was successfully removed from the multi-million dollar estate at 351 Stockbridge Avenue Saturday. Again: cadaver dogs did previously signal for the presence of human remains, but no human remains have been found, thus far — even after the car was completely removed from the property.

Given that Lew had once schemed to sink his yacht by the Golden Gate Bridge to collect the insurance money, maybe he had something similar in mind for this vehicle.

Regardless of the reason, Atherton police officials have said they won’t have any more updates until Monday at the earliest.

Related: Car Found Buried Next to Atherton Mansion Was Stolen In 1992

Mystery Unfolding In Atherton As Mercedes Is Found Buried In Yard, Likely From 30 Years Ago

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Mercedes-Benz that was found buried on the property of the late Johnny Lew, an ex-felon whom neighbors knew as "a crook" when he lived there in the 1990s, was apparently reported stolen in nearby Palo Alto exactly 30 years ago.

We learned early Friday that the house was built by Lew in 1990, and that his family owned the property until 2014. Convicted for murder in 1966, Lew got his conviction overturned two years later, only to be convicted in 1977 of attempted murder in Los Angeles. Two decades later, after building this house and raising a family there, Lew would be nabbed in an insurance fraud case in which he tried to pay two undercover agents to sink a $1.2 million yacht outside San Francisco Bay so he could collect the insurance. He reportedly alluded to bosses in an Asian mob who demanded that he commit this fraud.

As Bay Area News Group reports, some longtime neighbors recall a lot of earth-moving going on at 351 Stockbridge Avenue back when Lew built his mansion there. It had been an open piece of land before 1990 with a small hill on it, and the hill was flattened to build the house that still stands there — which last sold in 2020 for $15 million.

Atherton police said in an updated release Friday that the car was stolen in 1992, and that the owner of the car was believed to be now deceased. DMV records are still being sought.

As for whether investigators are going to find a body in there, we still don't know.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Atherton police said they had been digging into and around the vehicle since Thursday, and that the passenger seat area had been excavated without finding remains.

"We're continuing to excavate the vehicle, but the progress has been slow and methodical because we don't know what [we're looking at]," said Atherton Police Commander Dan Larsen, speaking to reporters. Larsen offered one new piece of information, which is that this was a Mercedes convertible, and the top of the car was down when it was buried.

When asked whether there were any missing persons cases from the early 1990s that they had connected to this, Larsen said he was no aware of any.

Cadaver dogs gave a "slight" indication of a scent of a body on Thursday, but so far, with part of the interior of the car excavated, no remains have been found. But, as Bay Area News Group reports, "Police didn’t mention the trunk."

"We're starting to look into the logistics of getting the vehicle up and out of the ground," Larsen said.

He noted that they still do not know whether this is a criminal or a non-criminal investigation, and that there would be no further updates to the media until Monday, barring breaking news, i.e., if they find a body.

When asked about the possibility of foul play connected to this car, Lew's daughter told the Chronicle, "My father definitely had emotional issues … this wouldn’t surprise me, just based on how sketchy my father was."

Previously: Mystery Unfolding In Atherton As Mercedes Is Found Buried In Yard, Likely From 30 Years Ago

Top image: A 1991 Mercedes convertible that could be similar to the one being excavated, via bringatrailer.com

Some serious intrigue began Thursday when some landscapers working at a property in Atherton unearthed a car buried four to five feet deep in the yard — and it's not yet clear whether there may be a body in it. The home used to belong to a notorious character with murder, attempted murder, and insurance fraud on his rap sheet.

Investigators say that a buried Mercedes-Benz that was found on the property of 351 Stockbridge Avenue in the ritzy enclave of Atherton has likely been there since the 1990s. A team from the Atherton Police Department and the San Mateo County crime lab has been excavating around the vehicle since the discovery was made Thursday morning, and as of last night the top of the car had been dug out.

As ABC 7 reports, cadaver dogs were brought to the scene, and one or more of them made a "slight notification" regarding the presence of human remains. Police say they have not found any human remains so far.

"The majority of the top of the vehicle has been uncovered but the interior of the vehicle was also filled with dirt,” said Atherton PD officer Dan Larson, speaking to KRON4. "So they’re kind of working their way through that but because of the unknown nature of it they have go through it slowly and methodically as they continue the investigation."

Larson also said, per Bay Area News Group , "We should know hopefully by the morning if there is something or if there isn’t something [in the car]."

Someone must have gone to a good deal of trouble to put an entire vehicle more than four feet underground, and foul play seems kind of likely, no?

ABC 7 reports that the car was also filled with "unused" bags of concrete.

Zillow indicates that this five-bedroom, 12,634-square-foot home, with its own tennis court, was built in 1990.

The entire tax record wasn't available, but it appears the home may have been under the same ownership throughout the 90s and aughts, before being put on the market in 2010 for $13.95 million. It looks like it sat on the market through multiple price reductions, before finally selling in 2014 for $7.35 million. That owner made a tidy profit reselling the place the day that lockdowns began in the Bay Area, on March 17, 2020, for $15 million.

The current owners called Atherton police after the car was discovered. Police seem confident that the car's burial long precedes the current owners' tenure there.

We'll update you if and when police confirm the contents of the vehicle.

Update: The former owner of the house — surprise! — was a man convicted of 2nd degree murder in 1966 and convicted of attempted murder in 1977. As the Chronicle reports, the owner of the house was Johnny Bocktune Lew, who was also charged with insurance fraud in 1999.

In the fraud case, Lew paid two undercover officers who he thought were hired goons to sink a $1.2 million yacht outside San Francisco Bay so that he could collect the insurance on it.

The 1966 murder case involved a girlfriend whom Lew met at college in Southern California. She died of a gunshot wound in Lew's apartment, and Lew maintained she had accidentally shot herself with his gun while handling it for the first time — and though he was convicted, the case was overturned in 1968 on the basis of improper use of hearsay as evidence.

Lew's daughter spoke with the Chronicle Friday saying that her father died of lung cancer in 2015. And, she added regarding the buried car, "this wouldn’t surprise me, just based on how sketchy my father was."

Top image via Zillow/MLS

The wealthy Peninsula enclave of Atherton has seen more home burglaries in the last month than it has in any month for many years. And police say the MO of the thieves matches what's been seen in Southern California and elsewhere, where organized groups of Chileans have been methodically breaking into the homes of the wealthy.

There's now such a thing as a "burglary tourism," apparently, and criminals from South America are coming for your jewels. Well, only if you're particularly rich and you live someplace like Hillsborough or Atherton.

As the Mercury News reports, eight homes in Atherton have been burglarized in the last month — and that's significant given that the tony town tends to only see about two burglaries per month, going back at least five years. Atherton Police say they suspect that six of the eight break-ins were committed by the same crew, likely Chileans operating out of Los Angeles.

The work and pattern of these "tourist" burglars was first reported by the Los Angeles Times in April 2019. The story came after police in Simi Valley arrested three Chilean nationals who were in the country on temporary visa waivers on suspicion of some 20 home burglaries and car break-ins at local golf courses. And the FBI said similar crimes had been occurring in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New York and elsewhere in Europe. Four Chileans were also arrested in connection with burglaries in a condo complex in Torrance — though it's not clear that they ever faced prosecution.

"It is a growing problem,” said FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller at the time. "They’re very sophisticated. It’s a hot zone in Southern California."

The Chileans have, allegedly, expanded their operations to Northern California now, and in addition to the recent Atherton burglaries, homes in the similarly wealthy town of Hillsborough have also been recently targeted. There have been a total of 28 residential burglaries in Atherton since the start of last year.

In on burglary last week, according to Atherton police, $50,000 worth of items were stolen from a home on Lilac Drive, after thieves broke in through a glass door on the back of the house.

"Their MO is to get into the master bedroom," said Atherton Chief of Police Steven McCulley. "They do a glass break so they don’t trip any sensors, and most people don’t have option alarms near the master bedroom. They’ve been successful with that MO."

This crew, or multiple crews, tend to go after jewelry as well as designer clothes and handbags that can be easily fenced online — just like those smash-and-grab retail thieves! And McCulley said that it's "not uncommon for [the haul] to be tens of thousands of dollars."

In addition to skirting security systems and targeting homes that are empty — with homeowners out of town — the thieves have been known to use remote key-fob jamming devices that prevent car owners from actually locking their cars. They walk away, believing the cars are locked, and then the crooks swoop in.

"They’re in and out in 10 minutes,” McCulley added. "They know exactly what they’re looking for and where they’re going. What these folks are known for is they don’t want to encounter anybody, and if they do they’re immediately gone. In, out and gone."

McCulley added in a statement that his department is "working with the San Mateo County Police Chiefs and Sheriff Association to leverage the use of existing crime task forces for burglary suppression." And they're hoping to work with the FBI to make some arrests.

But here it's been three years and this group (or groups) is still operating around the state and possibly the country. Or maybe word is just getting around the Chilean criminal underworld about all these easy pickings.

As the Orange County Register reported in 2019, one root of the problem is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which allows citizens from 38 countries to travel to the U.S. for up 90 days for business or pleasure without obtaining a visa — and Chile is the only South American country that participates in the program. Travelers are not guaranteed entry into the country when they arrive, however it is up to the discretion of Customs and Border Protection to allow them in or catch some reason to flag them as suspicious.

As a Chilean TV journalist, Javiera Rodríguez, explained to the LA Times, "There are many Chileans who, being criminals here, travel abroad because they can obtain better treasures. In addition, they are very ingenious and create new forms of theft."

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Look who was in Chinatown Tuesday. @billclinton stops by a bakery to shake hands pic.twitter.com/pT5MG3jk8p

— joegarofoli (@joegarofoli) May 24, 2016

Bill Clinton arrived in SF Tuesday morning and made an appearance at a breakfast reception as part of a speaking and fundraising tour as he stumps for his wife in the presidential race. The former president made campaign stops Monday in Sacramento and Stockton ahead of the June 7 California primary, and this afternoon he was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Fremont, as KTVU reports.

As the Mercury News tells us, Bill did a meet-and-greet for about 15 minutes this morning at the Washington Bakery and Restaurant, "posing for photos and sharing pleasantries with patrons who spoke limited English." This was before he was whisked off to the more expensive SF breakfast fundraiser where tickets went for between $250 and $2,700.

Regarding a brand new, totally sinister 15-second ad spot launched by the Trump campaign yesterday referring to the former president's past sex scandals and implying that he is a rapist, Clinton responded to a reporter saying, "I don't answer Mr. Trump. I trust the voters."

Hillary Clinton will join her husband Wednesday for a fundraiser in Atherton, followed Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at Parkside Hall in San Jose for a rally.

Previously: Video: Hillary Clinton Says 'California Counts,' Sounds Unsure About Legal Weed

A person was struck and killed by a Caltrain train at the Atherton Station on Sunday afternoon.

A Caltrain spokesperson told SFGate the incident occurred at 12:53 p.m. with a southbound train carrying over 1,000 passengers.

On Twitter, Caltrain is reporting that delays are expected on trains in both directions, and a bus bridge has been set up serving the Redwood City, Menlo Park, Atherton and Palo Alto stations.

The Atherton station is open only on weekends.

This is the eleventh fatality for Caltrain this year so far. The incident is under investigation.

Home prices in Atherton, already sky high as of last fall when Forbes declared it America's toniest zip code, continue to climb, in part because Forbes published that article. As SFGate's real estate blog notes, home prices in the Silicon Valley suburb are up 40 percent over last year, meaning that mansions and even little bungalows there are now 40 percent more expensive than what qualified as the most expensive place in the country 8 months ago.

CNBC reported last week that mansions are regularly going for prices over $10 million, and some of that is being fueled by foreign buyers, including those in China, who want to claim the prestige of living in America's wealthiest zip code. One Chinese buyer just plopped down $14 million for a mansion, sight unseen.

The median home price there is now a stupidly insane $9.44 million, up from $6.67 million last year.

Just in the first quarter of this year, brokers in Atherton sold seven properties that were priced over $10 million. Currently, the most expensive listing there is $25 million.

And this just goes to show that this guy's ranking of America's richest zip codes, which was not taking into account home prices, is way off — he had Atherton at #151.

[CNBC]
[SFGate]
[Curbed]

Just a short Prius drive away from the Silicon Valley campuses of Facebook and Google lies Atherton, California: America's fourth richest zip code, where the median home price last year was a startling $4.9 million. It also happens to have some of the quaintest crimes ever recorded. Here now: a sampling of crimes actual Atherton residents reported to the police, as recorded in the San Jose Mercury News.

Originally posted on a First World Problems sub-Reddit, the items include multiple incidents where local residents feared a stranger was at their door when, in fact, it was just someone delivering a package. It would seem some plucky blotter writer at the Mercury News really has their work cut out for them. Some of our favorites, for legibility's sake:

A woman whose finger got stuck in a drain was reportedly conscious and breathing.

A pedestrian was reported not to be doing anything strange other than wearing black pants and a white dress shirt while walking at an odd hour.

A man on campus at Sacred Heart School reportedly followed a janitor around asking odd questions.

And the always classic:

A resident asked for help finding a lost cat.

H/T: Gawker

A pedestrian was killed this morning in Atherton. The incident was reported at about 6:15 a.m. on El Camino Real. No word yet on arrests or cause of accident. However, a cruel CBS 5 commenter named "liberal h8r" had this to say: "I can picture this Prius Elitist doing 90mph in 40 zone only caring about his/herself, and then could not get out of the way. The pedestrian is a moron for trying cross a very busy and wide section of 82 where there are no cross walks. A couple of NOR-CAL geniuses at work." Charming. [CBS 5]

The cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, along with five environmental and citizens groups, filed suit Monday to stop the proposed high-speed rail that will rip through their quiet enclaves, if and when its built. The towns have banded together to call bullshit on an environmental impact report produced by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, claiming that the report shows inflated ridership numbers. In legalese, here's what they said in the suit, "The defective and inaccurate ridership and revenue information ... resulted in the [Authority] not being able to make accurate and informed choices among various project alternatives and in not being able to properly or accurately determine the financial feasibility of various project alternatives and mitigation measures."

As the San Jose Mercury News reports, the towns are equally worried about the noise as they are about the probability that the project will force the seizure of homes along the CalTrain corridor, through the use of eminent domain. An earlier lawsuit, filed two years ago by Menlo Park and Atherton regarding plans to bring the train through the Pacheco Pass, was dismissed.