statewide prosecutors are charging six defendants with criminal counts of grand robbery
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement close down a significant arranged retail robbery operation that spanned 16 counties.
An investigation by way of Moody’s Office of Statewide Prosecution, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, and FDLE discovered that an arranged retail crime ring brought about loads of 1000’s of bucks in losses to Home Depot.
Moody’s statewide prosecutors are charging six defendants with criminal counts of grand robbery.
“The suspects, in this case, went to great lengths and long distances to execute this elaborate construction rental scheme—stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in heavy construction equipment,” stated Moody.
“They thought they were being clever by using stolen identities and smashing the GPS trackers on the equipment, but it wasn’t enough to outsmart Sheriff Judd’s deputies, FDLE, and my Statewide Prosecutors.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd stated, “We admire the laborious paintings and cooperation from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Attorney General Ashley Moody’s Office of Statewide Prosecution—as a result of the multi-county robbery and fraud that befell on this case, lets no longer have held those thieves responsible with out their state-wide assets. Retail robbery is a significant issue in Florida.
“It drives up the cost of goods, and we all suffer through higher prices. These brazen thieves made a living systematically stealing. They made the mistake of stealing in Polk County—our detectives are among the best in the nation investigating organized retail theft. We will absolutely hold them accountable and put their butts in jail and then prison.”
Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass stated, “Organized retail theft has real-life impacts on our hard-working citizens who pay more for goods because of theft. I appreciate FDLE’s Orlando Regional Operations Center special agents and analysts that worked to recover a portion of the stolen property. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in partnership with Attorney General Moody’s Office of Statewide Prosecution and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, will continue to fight these crimes.”
The investigation confirmed that the defendants went to Home Depot retail outlets around the state, renting heavy apparatus and destroying the hooked up GPS tracker in an effort to resell the stolen pieces on-line. The investigation, starting in December 2021, confirmed no less than 50 suspected thefts all over the period of time of the investigation.
To whole the scheme, suspects applied stolen identifications, in addition to misled unsuspecting people to make use of identifications to finish the device leases. The suspects offered lots of the stolen pieces on Facebook Marketplace.
Here are some examples of the stolen items of apparatus:
Moody’s Statewide Prosecutors are charging 5 of the six defendants with grand robbery of various quantities, from first to third-degree felonies.
Moody’s Statewide Prosecutors are charging the ringleader Byron Johnson with one rely of grand robbery, greater than $100,000, a first-degree criminal; one rely of scheme to defraud, a third-degree criminal; 9 counts of dealing in stolen assets, all second-degree felonies; and illegal ownership of the private id information of someone else, a third-degree criminal.
Moody’s Statewide Prosecutors will prosecute this example.
Seeing the rising pattern of arranged retail robbery and smash-and-grab mobs in different portions of the country that led many firms to go away towns, Attorney General Moody took motion to offer protection to Florida companies and shoppers. There are stories of businesses giving up on towns that can’t get arranged retail crime underneath keep an eye on.
There also are companies and document numbers of Americans shifting to Florida. Polk County is the fastest-growing county in Florida—even some of the top-growing counties within the country. Florida’s leaders and its law-and-order means are contributing to this mass exodus to Polk County and the remainder of the state.
In December 2021, Attorney General Moody introduced the Florida Organized Retail Crime Exchange—a statewide activity drive and database to lend a hand spot traits, establish topics, and take down huge, arranged retail robbery rings.
FORCE additionally bridges the distance between regulation enforcement, prosecutors and shops to paintings in combination and percentage information on robbery incidents statewide. Since taking place of work, Moody’s Statewide Prosecutors have filed 79 circumstances and charged and/or sentenced 236 people in circumstances involving arranged retail robbery. For extra information on FORCE, click on right here.