For the second time in two years, John C. Tolley Jr., a 32-year-old Staten Island resident, has been extradited to Virginia after his arrest by the Ithaca Police Department (IPD). Tolley, who has a lengthy criminal history, violated probation terms following a previous conviction in Virginia and was recently located in Ithaca.
Tolley was arrested on November 1, 2024, at the Asteri building on Green Street in Ithaca, following a community tip that led police to his location. Authorities confirmed that Tolley was wanted by the Norfolk Police Department for probation violations tied to charges of grand larceny, credit card fraud, and credit card larceny. In 2019, Tolley pled guilty to credit card theft and was sentenced to two years in prison, which were suspended, and five years of post release supervision.
This arrest was another chapter in Tolley’s troubled legal history. On December 14, 2023, following his first extradition to Virginia, he pled guilty to failing to register as a sex offender, receiving a sentence of one year in jail with nine months suspended. Following his release, Tolley returned to Ithaca, leading to his second arrest by the IPD.
Tolley’s prior arrest in Ithaca occurred on July 15, 2023, when he was discovered during a routine police patrol in “the jungle,” also known as Jungle 2, in the wooded area behind Lowes. Jungle 2 is notorious as the site of the kidnapping of Thomas Rath before his murder. At the time, Tolley was wanted in Newport News, Virginia, for probation violations related to his failure to register as a violent sex offender.
Following his most recent arrest, Tolley was charged as a Fugitive from Justice under New York State law, arraigned in Ithaca City Court, and remanded to the Tompkins County Jail. His extradition to Virginia was completed on November 14, 2024, when he was listed in the Norfolk Police Department’s inmate database.