JPMorgan Fires Angie Baez After $175 Knicks Trash Can Fine

Q: How did an executive’s petty theft at a parade turn into a profitable piece of city-sanctioned memorabilia?

It became profitable because the item was already official memorabilia, and the theft made it famous. The trash can Angie Báez took was not an ordinary bin. It was a limited-edition Knicks-themed street litter basket created by the New York City Department of Sanitation with Only NY for the championship parade, making it city-sanctioned commemorative merchandise from the start. What changed was its visibility: video of Báez dumping trash onto the sidewalk and walking off with the basket went viral, turning the can into an instantly recognizable symbol of the parade and of the backlash that followed. That notoriety created demand. Social media users quickly treated the basket as a collectible, joking that it could be resold as “rare vintage Knicks memorabilia.” The city then leaned into that attention. After Báez returned the basket and was fined $175 by Sanitation Police, DSNY publicly pointed fans toward smaller purchasable versions, and replicas were later offered for sale for $168. So the profit did not come from the theft itself. The theft generated viral publicity, and that publicity increased the perceived value of an already limited official item. In effect, a petty act of taking public property became free marketing for a niche piece of parade memorabilia. For Báez, however, the outcome was costly rather than profitable: JPMorgan Chase said she was no longer with the company, and the city issued the maximum first-offense sanitation fines.

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 25

Angie Baez, 40, returned the Knicks-themed trash can Wednesday morning, but JPMorgan said the executive director was no longer with the company after the viral parade video.
$175 in summonses covered littering and impeding sanitation operations after Baez dumped the can’s contents onto the street and carried it onto the subway.
New York City’s sanitation department said it had placed about six orange-and-blue cans near the parade route and knew of no other thefts; the NYPD said it was not investigating.
The can’s return quickly became part of the spectacle itself: sanitation posted a “Welcome Back!” photo that drew more than 25,000 likes.
OnlyNY, which sells a full-size version for $168 and a mini for $58, said the collaboration was meant to honor sanitation workers, not capitalize on Baez’s viral stunt.