Burglars hit Romney's headquarters

The burglars struck after midnight. They opened a window on the ground floor, crept up two flights, pried open a locked door, and robbed a highly secure office: the headquarters of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in Boston's North End.

They stole seven laptop computers and their docking stations; six belonged to the candidate's finance department, the seventh to a member of Romney's legal team who worked with the finance department, according to a Boston police report.

They ripped from a wall a 37-inch plasma television, the personal property of Spencer Zwick, the candidate's finance manager and close personal adviser.

On the first floor, they stole a desktop computer from the finance department. And then they were gone.

Romney's headquarters on Commercial Street is monitored by private security 24 hours a day, but nothing was reported to police during the burglary, which took place before 6:45 a.m. yesterday, according to the police report.

A Romney aide was the first to report the crime, calling 911 at 9:40 a.m.

Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman, said the burglary was not politically motivated. Many potentially sensitive campaign files remained untouched, he said.

Fehrnstrom said he was not sure what files were stored on the stolen computers, but said a user would need a password to open the files and that the data on the hard drives were encrypted.

"There is no Woodward or Bernstein book at the end of this caper," said Fehrnstrom. "By all appearances, this is a routine burglary."

Elaine B. Driscoll, a police spokeswoman, said the motive for the burglary was under investigation.

She said there has been a rash of break-ins in the North End, 18 over the last 3 months, and detectives were investigating whether the burglary was connected to prior instances.

Yesterday, Boston police tested for fingerprints on the windows of Romney's three-story headquarters and interviewed the candidate's aides, but said they had not identified suspects or made arrests.

Officers on the scene said they had not found any political calling cards.

One joked that he had not seen any "Hillary" stickers plastered on the walls.

The police report listed three victims of the burglary: Romney for President, Spencer Zwick, and Commonwealth PAC, one of Romney's political action committees. It listed the value of the stolen items at $14,275.

Romney was scheduled to attend finance events yesterday in Boston and New York. and an aide said he was not available for comment.

His aides were quick to point out that other campaign offices have been burgled recently.

Last month, a homeless man was charged with stealing a television and a computer from the Hartford office of Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat who is running for president. Police do not believe that break-in was politically motivated.

On July 6, burglars broke into Senator Barack Obama's headquarters in Davenport, Iowa. The Rocky Mountain News had reported at the time that two laptop computers and campaign literature had been taken from the campaign of the Illinois Democrat.

In February, the New Hampshire Democratic Party reported a burglary at its Concord office.

Most famously, what was first called a routine break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building on June 17, 1972, led to the end of Richard M. Nixon's presidency.

Lisa Wangsness and Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.