Teen's tale of car theft may be tip of iceberg Few people believed teen's stories, including stealing a Lamborghini, until police found guns, disguises - and the car - in his storage unit

Large homes line Sugarloaf Drive in Tiburon, Calif. on Thursday, May 3, 2012, near a vacant home that teenaged car thief suspect Max Wade broke into a threw a party, according to police investigators. Large homes line Sugarloaf Drive in Tiburon, Calif. on Thursday, May 3, 2012, near a vacant home that teenaged car thief suspect Max Wade broke into a threw a party, according to police investigators. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Teen's tale of car theft may be tip of iceberg 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Max Michael Wade was a big talker, someone who boasted to a casual acquaintance about his scheme to rip off a Lamborghini from a San Francisco dealership's showroom floor.

But the 17-year-old teenager's stories were so outlandish, according to former classmates and friends of the San Rafael resident, no one really took him seriously.

Now, however, it looks as if some of the things Wade bragged about might just be true. And, judging by the trove of guns, electronic equipment, disguises and other contraband found in a storage locker he rented in Richmond, there might be other tales of intrigue not yet told.

Wade, who is being prosecuted in Marin County as an adult, is accused of stealing a $200,000 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder owned by celebrity chef Guy Fieri after allegedly rappelling from the roof of a Van Ness Avenue dealership on March 8, 2011, and cutting the locks on the showroom door.

The bright yellow car was discovered inside Wade's Richmond storage locker on April 28 after sheriff's sleuths connected him to a shooting two weeks prior of a girl Wade apparently liked and the teen she was dating. Neither was struck during the April 13 attack in Mill Valley even though five shots were fired into their pickup truck. Sheriff's detectives say Wade, dressed in black and riding a motorcycle, had been waiting for the couple to emerge from the male victim's Mill Valley home.

Secret revealed

Wade wasn't exactly tight-lipped about his taste for crime and expensive wheels. Before the crime, he told an old high school acquaintance about his plan to filch a Lamborghini.

The acquaintance, who did not want to be named because of the ongoing case, said he picked up Wade last year to drive him to San Francisco as a favor to a mutual friend.

Wade told the acquaintance he needed the ride because he was going to sell high school kids some fake IDs he had made at Kinko's. While on the drive, the then-16-year-old Wade revealed a secret, according to the acquaintance.

"He looked at me, and said: 'You seem like a trustworthy guy, so I'm going to tell you that in four months, I'm going to steal a Lamborghini,' " said the acquaintance.

"Obviously, I thought he was lying," the acquaintance said. "He was young. I told him, 'You're crazy.' "

But Wade insisted he was telling the truth, boasting that he would take the car from a high-end Van Ness dealership. He said "he was going to sell it and that people had his back," said the friend.

The acquaintance said he didn't think much more about it until he read about a stolen Lamborghini, which was last seen traveling on Tiburon Boulevard.

"I was extremely shocked that a high school kid, age 16, could pull this off," he said. "It was ridiculous."

Internet posting

The acquaintance said Wade later posted on the Internet an animation sequence that had been created by a local TV news station depicting how the Lamborghini thief might have pulled off the crime. Wade wrote, "hahaha" on the posting, but did not respond to questions about it, the acquaintance said.

Wade's behavior after the alleged theft was about as far from low profile as it could be. He was arrested on charges of burglary after he allegedly broke into a vacant hilltop estate on Sugarloaf Drive in Tiburon on Feb. 3 and held a party, according to friends and police records. The multimillion-dollar mansion, with views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, is vacant part of the year, according to the tenants, who only learned of the party when they returned from their other home in Athens.

"We were told by the police that somebody broke into the house and, at the beginning, we thought it was funny that they had a party," said a female resident, who did not want her name used. The woman said she later noticed that several small items were missing from the house.

Wade grew up down the street from the house, but it was unclear where he was living at the time of his arrest or whose care he was under. His parents could not be reached for comment. No mention of them is made in the court records.

Police tracked Wade to the house of one of his friends in San Rafael. The mother of his friend said he hung out there, but never spent the night at her house. She declined to comment further other than to say she is supportive of Wade.

Date leads to arrest

It wasn't much of a secret among his high school chums that Wade was tooling around in a yellow Lamborghini, yet nobody thought to tell police. The female victim of the Mill Valley shooting said she did not have a social relationship with Wade, but knew he had what she called a "Lambo," according to the Sheriff's Department bail report. Wade was captured after he texted the girl - two weeks after he allegedly shot at her - and asked her to go on a drive with him to San Francisco in the Lamborghini. Detectives said they arrested Wade when he went to the Richmond storage locker to pick up the car for his date.

Wade's Facebook and Myspace pages list inspirations and desires. On his Facebook page, which has been blocked since his arrest, he stated that he admired bank robber John Dillinger, mobster John Gotti and Greek gangster Vassilis Paleokostas.

He hasn't posted on his Myspace page in years, but when he was 13, he told a friend he had a real gun that he got in Mexico. His favorite movies included "Mission: Impossible," "The Bourne Identity" and a variety of spy thrillers, and martial arts and gangster flicks. His idols included drug lord Pablo Escobar. He listed martial arts and fighting among his general interests.

He wrote, "me i want what's comin to me..the world..and everything in it."

A troubled past

In 2008, around the time of these postings, a police report was filed against Wade for head-butting a classmate in the face during a shoving match in the gymnasium at Redwood High School, in Larkspur. The Marin County district attorney did not file charges in the case.

Almost two years later, in September 2010, he was arrested after he allegedly stole his mother's maroon SUV and painted it black. According to the bail report, Wade was booked on charges of vehicle theft, possession of stolen property, possession of burglary tools and manufacturing false identification in connection with the case. Detective Cheryl Paris, of the Twin Cities Police Department, said she did not know if there was ever a conviction in the case.

Fake IDs were apparently Wade's stock-in-trade. He sold fake driver's licenses and identification cards to his fellow students and was carrying one in the name of "Frank Agnello Gotti," a name quite similar to the TV star and grandson of Gambino crime boss John Gotti, when he was arrested, according to the bail report.

Wade was a known troublemaker even when he was attending Del Mar Middle School in Tiburon. One girl who knew him then described him as a person who "didn't behave well" and "got in trouble a lot."

"He was a little wild," said another former middle school friend. "He told a lot of stories, and nobody ever thought they were true. Whenever I heard (his stories) I never believed them."

The cache found in Wade's Richmond storage locker was certainly hard to believe. Besides the stolen Lamborghini, the motorcycle and .357 revolver believed to be used in the shooting, detectives said they found a dismantled AK-47 assault weapon, a San Francisco police uniform and badge, sophisticated electronic transmitting devices, bugs, cell phone signal jamming devices, and a mask that police say is similar to the garb worn in a recent series of unsolved bank robberies.

Wade, who may finally have won some believers, is being held in Marin County Juvenile Hall on $2 million bail.