Nicole Dipo, the 28-year-old trans woman who was arrested in April for stealing potentially dozens of Zipcars around San Francisco, has now given an interview from jail to ABC 7 in which she admits to stealing seven Zipcars. Conveniently, seven is the number of cars she's currently charged with stealing, however police believe the number could be ten times as high.
As we noted earlier, Dipo was arrested in April and charged with the theft of five Zipcars, but police found evidence in her home, including nine Zipcar access cards and eight devices to override Zipcar ignitions, that led the district attorney to push to keep her in custody. But she ended up being released on her own recognizance and then was caught the next day in another allegedly stolen vehicle, in front of her home. Along with another she had apparently stolen, that brought the number to seven.
A CHP officer who initially arrested Dipo, however, says she admitted to stealing 30 cars. And a wave of Zipcar thefts numbering between 75 and 81 cars between March and mid-April dropped off suddenly as soon as Dipo was arrested. Since her April 12 arrest, only three Zipcars have gone missing.
Dipo claims, however, that there were other thieves and a ringleader, but she was not part of that ring.
She says the stealing provided a kind of high there's been no clarification from investigators as to what happened to the cars after she stole them but she says she's "really done" with thieving. In jail, she says, "I've been able to rethink about what I wanted to do."
She'll be back in court next week, and it sounds like she'll be pleading guilty to the seven cars she previously plead not guilty to stealing.
Previously: Alleged Zipcar Kleptomaniac Was Caught Stealing Another Zipcar A Day After Her Release