Joshua McCarty-Thomas, a 46-year-old man from St. Petersburg, Florida, has been arrested for allegedly stealing two endangered Galapagos tortoises, rare books, and comedian books from quite a lot of places within the state. According to a news unencumber from the St. Petersburg Police Department, McCarty-Thomas used to be taken into custody after detectives carried out a seek warrant at his place of abode and discovered one of the vital lacking tortoises useless in his freezer, whilst the opposite used to be alive in his backyard.
The juvenile Galapagos tortoises have been known by way of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, who scanned the microchips implanted in them. The tortoises have been showed as the similar ones that have been stolen from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine on November 30, 2022. The tortoises are price round $10,000 every and have been a part of a captive breeding program on the facility. Galapagos tortoises can weigh as much as 600 kilos and reside for as much as 150 years.
McCarty-Thomas additionally faces business housebreaking fees with regards to rare ebook thefts at two St. Petersburg companies – Haslam’s Book Store and Lighthouse Books – with a cumulative price of hundreds of bucks. Additionally, he has an impressive arrest warrant for burglarizing a shop in Ocala and stealing precious comedian books price hundreds of bucks.
Earlier this 12 months, McCarty-Thomas used to be arrested for burglarizing a house in St. Petersburg on Christmas Day in 2022 and is waiting for trial on that rate. He is recently being held on the Pinellas County prison on a $97,000 bail.