Man connected to two Worth Avenue jewelry store smash-and-grabs is charged in a third
A man already connected by Palm Beach police to two smash-and-grab burglaries at jewelry stores on Worth Avenue has been charged in another incident at another jewelry store in the same block of the iconic shopping street.
While the 29-year-old Lake Worth Beach man was arrested Feb. 20 in connection with a burglary that day at David Yurman and Palm Beach police filed charges in connection with a 2022 break-in at Tiffany & Co., the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s office has declined to prosecute the Tiffany case, court records show.
The newest charges of burglary to a structure and criminal mischief with damage of less than $1,000 — filed March 27 in Palm Beach County circuit court — are related to a Jan. 29, 2023, breakin at Frank Aubert Jewelry on Worth Avenue, police records show.
The three incidents share similarities, police said: Surveillance footage from the town’s cameras in each breakin shows a man dressed in dark clothing approaching the stores riding a scooter. Within minutes, the window or windows were smashed. In two cases, jewelry was stolen.
And, they all happened on the same block of Worth Avenue.
Officers arrested the man in February after receiving a call that an alarm went off at the David Yurman store at 249 Worth Ave. An officer then spotted the man on the town's surveillance cameras. Police confronted the man, who fled on his electric scooter toward the Intracoastal. He jumped into the water and swam to a dock at the Palm Beach Marina where he was arrested, police said.
The Palm Beach Police Department's dive team that day went to the spot where the man jumped into the water and found the man's scooter and about $70,000 worth of jewelry that had been taken from David Yurman. The jewelry was found inside a glove the man had been wearing, police said.
The man faces charges only in the burglaries at David Yurman and Frank Aubert Jewelry. The State Attorney declined to pursue the Tiffany incident.
More:Police: Man stole jewels on Worth Ave., fled on scooter before ending up in Intracoastal
According to a probable cause affidavit filed for the most recent charges, police received a call about a suspicious incident at Frank Aubert Jewelry at 250 Worth Ave. — across the street from Tiffany & Co. and catty-corner to David Yurman — about 10 a.m. Jan. 29, 2023. When police arrived, a nearby store owner told them about a broken window at Frank Aubert, the report said.
One of the lower windows on the east side of the store was shattered, and there was blood on the window frame, the ground and on the wall under the broken window inside the store, the report said.
More:Palm Beach Police connect man arrested last week with 2022 burglary at Tiffany & Co.
A Palm Beach police crime scene technician collected samples of the blood for evidence, according to the report.
No jewelry was taken or tampered with, the store’s owner told police, who said that — with costs to repair the window and clean the carpet estimated about $420 — he would like to prosecute, the arrest report said.
When police reviewed surveillance camera footage from the area, they saw a man wearing a black jacket and light-colored pants riding an electric scooter. He stopped and parked the scooter in front of Frank Aubert Jewelry about 3:55 a.m. and walked out of view for about five minutes, the police report said.
When the man came back into view, he got back onto his scooter and rode away, the report said.
The blood collected at the scene was sent for analysis, and there were no further developments in the case — until this past February, when police arrested the Lake Worth Beach man following the break-in at David Yurman.
Once in police custody, the man provided a sample of his DNA and his fingerprints, police said.
The man's DNA was a match for the blood found at Frank Aubert in January 2023, the most recent arrest report said. And while the state attorney is not prosecuting him for the Tiffany & Co. burglary, the arrest report in that incident said the man’s fingerprints matched those collected from that scene.
The man remains in custody at the Palm Beach County Jail on $11,000 bail in in the Aubert case along with $357,000 bail in the David Yurman burglary, jail records show. If he gets released, he has been ordered to have no contact with any jewelry stores, according to court records.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.