Police charge woman’s son-in-law for jewelry theft

Longboat Key Police issued an arrest warrant June 10 for a Beachplace woman’s son-in-law, who is accused of stealing more than $20,000 of his mother-in-law’s jewelry.

On May 3, Key resident Sara Kingston informed Longboat Key Police that more than $20,000 of her jewelry was missing from her fourth-floor unit.

A Beachplace office employee informed police May 8 that unit keys are kept in lockboxes, and the keys had not been taken. Police began looking into all Beachplace employees.

The investigation produced no results, but a break occurred when Kingston called the department June 4 and said she believed her son-in-law, Charles Smith, of Boca Raton, might have stolen her belongings.

Kingston told police she just returned home from Boca Raton, where she was visiting her daughter. Her daughter told her that Smith had recently opened up financial accounts in her name without her permission and wasn’t paying bills, which resulted in liens being placed against her.

The daughter told her mother that Smith was doing strange things lately, according to the police report. The conversation led Kingston to believe Smith might have stolen the items when he visited the condominium with her daughter the weekend of April 5.

Kingston confirmed Smith had access to the condo when they weren’t home.

“We believe these items were taken over time, and not just on the one visit,” said Longboat Key Police Detective Sgt. Robert Bourque.

Bourque searched pawn shop databases and was able to match the two missing Chanel purses owned by Kingston with a Boca Raton pawnshop.

Police allege that serial numbers for the purses matched up, and the database confirmed Smith sold the purses.

The purses were listed as stolen, and Bourque notified the Boca Raton Police Department of the discovery. Bourque also discovered Smith sold jewelry, which has since been melted and cannot be recovered, at another Boca Raton pawn shop.

Bourque obtained an arrest warrant for grand theft for Smith June 10, and Boca Raton Police charged Smith with dealing in stolen property and defrauding a pawn broker.

So far, Boca Raton Police have been unsuccessful in finding Smith to arrest him on the charges.

“Once we find him, we want to interview him,” Bourque said.

Bourque said Smith is using a license plate that doesn’t belong to him because his tag was revoked more than a year ago.

“Once he’s located and we recover the car tag, I can use the license-plate recognition system to search for when his car was on the island to explore the possibility of charging him with a burglary to his mother-in-law’s home,” Bourque said.