Articles Posted in Theft Crimes in Jacksonville

Police are investigating a longtime JEA employee accused of fiddling with customer accounts to reduce their balances and, in one instance, accepting prescription drugs in exchange for doing so. Stephen Smith, a 14-year JEA employee, was suspended by the city-owned utility last month according to a report in the Florida Times-Union. JEA took the information…

Federal sentencing guidelines called for 10 years in prison for Tony Nelson, a Jacksonville businessman convicted of accepting bribes in his role as chairman of the Jacksonville Port Authority. Last week, Nelson was sentenced to 40 months in prison – exactly one-third of the time recommended by the guidelines. He was convicted in May of…

Police regularly use DNA and other high-tech forensic evidence to nab people accused of murder, rape and other violent crimes. But a jewelry heist? St. Augustine detectives have, and say DNA evidence has led them to Shawn Slattery, a former employee of Vaccaro Estate Jewelry, according to a report in the St. Augustine Record. When…

Jurors convicted a St. Augustine Beach businesswoman and philanthropist of running a Ponzi scheme to rip off more than $100 million from investors. Lydia Cladek, 67, was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud, nine counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy. She is expected to be sentenced within the next three…

Two Northeast Florida women were charged last week in separate employee theft cases and both appear to be fighting uphill battles – at least by what police have released so far. Betty Barnes, a 78-year-old wheelchair-bound Jacksonville church employee, was charged with stealing $167,000 from the church over several years by inflating her own paychecks…

A Jacksonville teen caught robbing a convenience store with a fake gun was shot and killed by police after he refused to drop the gun. Jacksonville robbery detectives had been staking out a Westside Kangaroo store, one of two that had been held up nine times in the last two months, according to a report…

Police arrested two people and have Jacksonville warrants for three more after at least $77,000 from grants targeted to help people pay their mortgages turned up missing. All five people worked for the Community Rehabilitation Center, which offers programs for mental health, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS prevention and job training. An internal audit last spring uncovered…

Certain crimes are just made for television. Not necessarily because the storyline has all the trappings of a Hollywood storyline, but because the surveillance video is so clear there is no doubt the suspect will end up on the news. Police jump at the chance to release video like the one last week of two…

If the police come a knocking, you don’t have to talk to them. But, if you do, tell the truth. Lying to the cops can get you in a mountain of trouble – just look at former Raines High School principal George Maxey. Maxey was forced out of his high-profile job at the northwest Jacksonville…

A New Jersey man was lured out of his hotel room last week by a woman who said she was an undercover police officer and told him his car was hit in the parking lot. Once the man got outside, another woman pulled a knife on him and demanded money, according to a report by…