Maintenance worker Frank Saraceno likes riding his Harley and tinkering with the 1985 Corvette he bought a few years back as “a project” for his semi-retirement. Last year, he got the Vette up and running. The plan for 2006 was to paint it white, with an American flag on the hood.
He hasn’t quite gotten around to that yet. Instead, Saraceno, 61, of West Babylon, spent the better part of this week fending off eager respondents to an online classified advertisement — apparently posted by someone else — directing those interested in a free Corvette to come to Saraceno’s address and remove it.
“It’s an odd thing,” said Lt. Robert Waring with Suffolk’s First Precinct, who added that investigators had not determined if it was a prank or if someone was trying to harass Saraceno. Asked how common such incidents are, Waring said, “This is the first one that I’m aware of that we’re handling.”
“What is Craigslist?” Saraceno asked the first comer to show up in his driveway Monday, when told the man was responding to an ad in the “free” section of Craigslist.org, a popular online classified ad site.
“All of a sudden they start coming, every 15 minutes,” Saraceno said Thursday. “When the flatbed pulled up, I called the cops.” Later, his daughter alerted News 12, which ran a segment on Wednesday night.