Zucchini Brother has nothing but love for alleged thief

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Musician Jack "Zucchini" Powell sits inside his van, which was broken into in March at the F. Donald Myers Education Center in Saratoga Springs. All of his audio equipment was stolen, along with other items.

You can steal from Jack “Zucchini” Powell, but he’s not going to sit and cry about it.

You can steal the musical equipment he uses for solo performances and as part of the popular local children’s band the Zucchini Brothers. You can steal his favorite hiking boots. You can even steal the tattered and torn carryall bag that he snagged more than 30 years ago at a Grateful Dead show.

“That was irreplaceable to me,” he said. “It was like my Linus blanket.”

But even then, he won’t cry, he won’t stress. He may even wish you well. In fact, after someone stole all of this stuff from his colorful “happy” van in early March, he did just that.

“I never once hated this person,” Powell said Friday, a few days after police recovered less than half of his stuff from a home in Saratoga. “He was doing the best he could on that day. There’s no room for hate. I approach everything with love, no matter what. And I think when you do that, you get what you put out.”

Saratoga Springs police arrested a man from the town of Saratoga this week who they believe is responsible for the Zucchini theft and a string of more-recent car thefts in the city. The arrest happened Thursday, but only after a strange turn of events.

Police say they received a call around lunchtime Thursday from D’Andrea’s Pizza on Caroline Street saying they had discovered a man in the parking lot who was in the process of stealing items from a car. People on the scene detained him until officers arrived. Just before this call, police received two additional reports of car thefts on the other side of town, near the Ballston Avenue Price Chopper on Aletta Street.

When they arrived on scene, the person being detained was 33-year-old David D. Farr, police say. They had just met him earlier in the week as part of the 2-month-old Zucchini investigation, when they executed a search warrant at his home in the town of Saratoga and found a large amount of property that had been stolen from the Zucchini van.

“We were in the midst of working on that case and putting a case together when this separate chain of events took place Thursday,” said Saratoga Springs police Lt. Robert Jillson.

Jillson said police were waiting to charge Farr in the Zucchini theft because they only had enough evidence for a possession charge. In fact, that’s still all they have, though they say additional charges may be filed in the case, and additional persons may be charged, as well.

But once they got Farr on the car thefts, they decided to throw in the possession charge, as well, Jillson said. Altogether, Farr faces a felony fourth-degree grand larceny charge for the alleged theft of a credit card; a felony fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property charge for the Zucchini theft; three misdemeanor counts of petty larceny,; and unlawful possession of marijuana, a violation. One of the petty larceny charges stems from a May 9 theft from a car parked on Schuyler Drive, police say.

Farr was arraigned on all charges in City Court and sent to the Saratoga County jail without bail.

As for Powell — who put out love following the March 6 theft from his happy van — he truly did get what he put out. After he posted about his determination to stay positive while sailing over a “speed bump” in life on his personal Facebook page, his friends and fans responded in kind by sending him donations to replace his stolen equipment. At first, he balked at the idea of taking donations, but his wife convinced him to accept them and move on.

The community raised enough money that Powell was able to replace the stolen equipment — his PA equipment, floor pedals, stands, cords, a video recorder, microphones and more.

For a long time, Powell has been toying with the idea of touring schools to talk to kids about the importance of positivity. When he’s not playing with the Zucchini Brothers, he travels to schools to teach music workshops as part of his solo business, RiverJack Z.

“I want to give something back now,” he said, “and I think this turn of events is a good way for me to jumpstart this new thing, to teach kids that the way to approach anything in life is to approach everything with love, no matter what.”

Police only recovered Powell’s PA equipment from Farr’s home. The rest of the equipment was nowhere to be found.

They did, however, find a pair of comfy hiking boots and an old Grateful Dead bag.