Darius McCollum has Asperger's, and an OCD: impersonating New York transit staff, stealing buses and trains, and then driving them away... and has spent a third of his life in jail for his OCD. He has been arrested 30 times in 35 years,

McCollum has often said he would seek therapy, but always ends up back on the rails or behind the wheel of a bus. He has applied and been refused real transit authority work several times – he told the Journal that he believed his 1981 arrest got him “blackballed”.

A Harper’s Magazine article on McCollum by Jeff Tietz was a finalist in profile writing for the 2003 American Society of Magazine Editors awards. At the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, Paperhat Productions of New York mounted a play by Director Jude Domski called Boy Steals Train, based on McCollum’s life and letters McCollum wrote to Domski, and described as “pointing a shaming collective finger at a judiciary that refuses to recognize Darius's condition”. 

The play was awarded a Fringe First by The Scotsman and the troupe won a Best Ensemble Acting Award. His story was also made into a BBC radio play, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2005

“Off the Rails” explores the frustrating cycle in which McCollum is trapped: Despite his requests for therapy for his condition, none is available in jail. After he’s released from prison, he’s forbidden from leaving New York due to the terms of his parole. Unable to get a job because of his record, and unable to live with his mother in North Carolina, he ends up homeless and depressed — a condition only relieved by stealing another train or bus for a few hours of bliss. Eventually the cops get him, and the cycle begins again.

At one point, McCollum found temporary relief from his train-snatching urges by volunteering at Brooklyn’s Transit Museum, where his encyclopedic knowledge was appreciated by the staffers. But higher-ups got wind of it, and he was asked to leave. “The transit police told me it would be good for me there,” he says. “But the bosses said no.”

“He’s widely known for having cooperated with the FBI to teach them what he knows: Here are the gaps in your transit network, this fence should be higher, this fence should have a camera,” says Irving. “He’ll tell them, ‘If you follow these measures, I won’t be able to take your vehicles anymore, and by extension, terrorists won’t be able to take them.’”

In this, Irving says, McCollum is like Frank Abagnale Jr., the pilot impostor and master check forger played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2002 film “Catch Me If You Can.” “He got caught, and now he’s showing the government how he does what he does.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/darius-mccollum-train-thief-dreams-new-york-transit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_McCollum

https://www.villagevoice.com/2013/08/16/darius-mccollum-autistic-man-jailed-29-times-for-stealing-buses-and-trains-will-finally-get-some-professional-help/

https://nypost.com/2016/11/17/meet-new-yorks-beloved-mass-transit-bandit/