After being arrested more than two dozen times for posing as a transit worker to steal buses and trains in New York City and drive the routes, Darius McCollum has been paroled, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier this year, McCollum was arrested behind the wheel on the highway that leads to Kennedy International Airport. After pleading guilty to stealing a Trailways bus in 2010, McCollum was released on Tuesday night.
If convicted at a trial, McCollum would have faced up to 15 years in jail, but the Queens district attorney and his lawyer worked out a deal in which he would voluntarily enter a program to undergo cognitive behavioral therapy, the AP reported.
The 49-year-old became a celebrity for escapades that began at age 15, when he piloted a subway train six stops without any passengers noticing. He grew up in Queens near a station serving two Metropolitan Transportation Authority lines, and learned the mechanics of the transit system from workers who took an interest in him, according to the AP.
He was diagnosed with what was until recently called Asperger's syndrome, but is now referred to as an autism spectrum disorder. His repeated arrests stem in part from the disease. There are plans to get in touch with a nonprofit to help him find a therapist, and work or vocational school, McCollum told the AP on Wednesday.
"I'm actually happy. It was a rough process but I finally made it," he said, adding his outlaw days were behind him. "I can't afford to get arrested again, I can't deal with the jail thing - it's too much, the gang mentality."
By the age of eight, McCollum had the subway map memorized, but was unable to score a job with the transit system. Instead he became a transit impostor and has been arrested 29 times, according to the AP.
McCollum wasn't diagnosed with the disorder until recently. During a Manhattan case 10 years ago, he was only handed literature on the topic when the judge refused to order a psychiatric evaluation after she said she looked the disorder up online and decided McCollum didn't suffer from it.
Prosecutors, the judge and his attorney are all hopeful that he'll be able to stay out of trouble.
McCollum is staying with friends in Queens for now, and was spending his first day of freedom in Manhattan with filmmakers making a documentary about his life, the AP reported.
