The North Jersey farm where 200 pumpkins were stolen in the middle of the night this week has put up a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the thieves.

Thieves were caught on surveillance video loading a van with 200 pumpkins around 1:30 a.m. early Tuesday morning. Their haul was valued at more than $2,000.

Todd Kuehn, 52, one of the family members that runs Farms View in Wayne, is aggravated  by the theft. He does not like the term  "prank" being used to describe the crime and feels violated. The theft will not break him financially, said Kuehn but the theft doesn't make him feel great.

"A good prank everybody laughs in the end. This isn't a prank. I looked at a cameraman the other day and said, 'it's a prank if I take your camera, I walk around the back, I watch you look for it for five minutes and bring it back and say 'ha, ha, ha.' If I pick it up, walk away and never come back, is that still a prank? He looked at me and said, 'I never thought about it that way.'"

"Why do people think that just because it's a pumpkin it's not as important as if it were 50 $40-pairs of earrings for a couple thousand dollars?"

Police Capt. Mark MacGrath said that no information has come in so far and their investigation continues. He said once suspects are charged and arrested, a judge would likely treat this as more than just a prank.

"I'm going to go court and make sure these people get the proper punishment and I'm not going to be happy if they don't," Kuehn said.

He would like to see them have community service as part of that punishment.

"They worked really hard and fast to load up those pumpkins. They should get them to clean up a couple of parks and burn up some energy doing that," Kuehn said.

One good thing that came out of the incident, according to Kuehn, is that other farmers have offered to give him some extra pumpkins.

"Everybody is concerned about what goes on with everybody else."

Kuehn, who runs the farm portion of the family business, said his father died last December and pitched in to help get through the season but isn't sure he wants to stick with the business for the long haul.

MacGrath asked anyone with information about this incident to contact Wayne police at 973-633-3580.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com.

 

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