Theft update

[mariness]

As it turns out, the alleged thief (to be legally correct about such things; he's been arrested but not convicted yet), lives fairly close by -- in fact I'm pretty sure I've waved to him on the trike. (The perils of friendliness.) The city cops charged him with a total of nine counts, which gave us the opportunity to learn that if you conduct criminal mischief in Orange County, you can post bail for the low low cost of $150 (which is cheaper than bail postings for drunken driving, disorderly conduct and marijuana possession) but add guns to your robbery and suddenly bail gets VERY pricey. (My advice is, don't commit robbery, especially with a gun, unless you have plenty of spare cash on hand, which, frankly, if you're using guns in a robbery, you probably don't.) This is his third arrest of the year, but the most serious.

The cops did find some of my brother's possessions, but not, so far, the guns, which is the most serious point.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Well, I'm glad a suspect is in custody, and hope the guns are recovered soon.

[mariness]

Yeah. The cops said he was caught in the act of robbing somebody else's car, but since he seems to be part of a gang of thieves selling stuff to pawnshops, I think pinning our particular crime to him might be a bit difficult, and I suspect that he'll pleabargain down to some lesser offense. Getting convicted for robbing our place, since guns were involved, is a VERY stiff sentence in Florida especially since this would be his third conviction this year; for the other stuff he can probably get out with just serving a few days to a year or nothing at all (which is what happened with the other two convictions.)

[hummingwolf]

Well, I hope any possessions you folks actually care about are recovered soon!

[mariness]

Well, he was able to identify some of the camera equipment, so that was a plus. The concern about the guns isn't so much that he cares about them as that he doesn't want to have a later problem if they are used in a crime.