Dogged legwork led to identifying the suspect and making an arrest the morning of Feb. 23.
Snohomish Police Department Facebook
SNOHOMISH — The thief who repeatedly hit Home Depot was smart, but maybe not smart enough.
However, a day after his arrest, he’s been out of jail on personal recognizance under a district judge’s decision.
Almost daily from late January until his arrest Feb. 23, his operation was simple: Drop by Home Depot in Snohomish and walk out with something stolen to re-sell.
We’re talking power tools, a pressure washer and more. In a little over a month, he’d stolen upwards of $6,500 of goods from 15 different early morning visits, court documents say.
It took a dogged Snohomish Police deputy to unravel it all.
Deputy Bradley Dawes decoded the man’s puppet profiles on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace to reveal his real name. Store video camera footage of the thefts helped police positively identify him. Probable cause was obtained in court to let police arrest the Lake Stevens man on sight. The very next morning, he showed up at the Home Depot, like usual, and was arrested in aisle two.
On Facebook, the Police Department cheered the legwork that led to his arrest last month.
Why is he currently out?
A custody hold based on his probable cause arrest elapsed, meaning he had to be legally released. Formal criminal charges weren’t filed by county prosecutors at the time.
The state asked the judge to set $5,000 bail. His defense attorney objected, a court record shows. No bail was set. He was being held on probable cause charges of burglary and organized retail theft.
The prosecutor’s office has three years to file criminal charges before the statute of limitations runs out, a paralegal in the prosecutor’s office said Tuesday, March 8.
The man’s other theft case, though, is for trafficking stolen goods in 2018. He burglarized his next door neighbors’ house in Lake Stevens and pawned what he stole.
That case is currently active in court.
In it, the suspect agreed to being under a therapeutic alternatives to prosecution (TAP) pathway, an alternative to incarceration for felony crimes which where done while having difficulties with drug or alcohol dependency, or mental health issues. It’s a voluntary rehabilitation program that carries a probation period.
He began participating in TAP in 2019.
Some time afterward, he collected a three-year “no trespassing” order from store security at the Everett Home Depot in September 2021 after he tried to steal merchandise, court documents state.
The Tribune is not naming the suspect of the Home Depot thefts because the prosecutor’s office has not filed charges.
