Do we really think a prosecutor is going into court with a picture of evidence?
The thief has only been identified but not really "caught," and Frankie definitely didn't get his stuff back I don't think based on what is on his facebook page that I saw.
My understanding, and I could have misunderstood some parts, was that Frankie's cues and case were all stolen from his truck (along with an ipad and some baseball equipment). A few days later people saw the cues and case for sale on a guy's facebook page for $20 for the whole lot of the pool stuff and let Frankie know, who in turn called the police. Police took a report, but estimated the total value of the items at $900, which in Frankie's opinion was done to keep it from being a more serious theft charge (above $1000) which would add to the serious crime statistics for NYC if it were above $1000 and NYC is trying to show a reduction in serious crime, hence their "cooking the books" on what charges they file if they can get away with it so they can make it look like serious crime is down.
The police basically also told Frankie that they can't prove that this guy stole his stuff, or even that he has Frankie's his stuff, or even that the stuff in the pictures is even Frankie's stuff because they don't believe that Frankie can positively ID the stuff from just the photo and so there isn't anything they can do to pursue in anyway until Frankie can get a solid ID on it in person somehow.
Within a day of Frankie filing the report the guy who is the suspect went to court for sentencing on another charge and got a 1 to 3 year sentence and is currently locked up on that unrelated business. The police need to have Frankie be able to ID the stuff in person by either seeing it himself or maybe someone else buying it from the guy and giving it to Frankie to ID before they can pursue it but that isn't looking so likely since the guy will apparently be in jail for a while. Frankie said he was going to contact the guy's friends and family listed on facebook to see if maybe they have access to it and will let him look at the items or something along those lines and that is where things stand at the moment from what I can tell.
Edit: I see that somebody has quoted part of what he said on facebook above while I was typing my post.