All arrestees are innocent until proven guilty.
We have a second arrest this week that seems like a bigger deal that the usual stuff. Earlier this week we reported on a case with numerous counts of sexual assault on a 12-year-old. Now we have a major grand larceny case. Mr. Franco Nicolas Abugattas (age 21) was arrested Friday morning for an offense that court records say happened in November. The charge is Grand Larceny in the 1st Degree, and the specific section cited in the case typically involves theft of something worth more than $100,000. The subsection also includes “theft of a semitrailer that was deployed by a law enforcement officer”, but that seems unlikely.
The Boca Raton address reported in the blotter seems to be an error. There is an Abugattas family living in Boca Raton, but we did not see any other connection between this man and that family. We did see an indication that he has ties in Weston, a place some refer to as Westonzuela (after Venezuela) though the Abugattas name appears to be from Peru.
One other curiosity in the case is that as best we can tell his address is in the city of Boca Raton, but the arrest was made by the Sheriff rather than Boca PD. Normally the Sheriff makes arrests in West Boca and other unincorporated parts of the county. We hope to find out more in the coming days.
Next up is the arrest of Denice Martin (45) on Wednesday. Ms. Martin is accused of a felony involving possession of cocaine and of “drug equipment.” Back in September we reported her arrest in a cocaine bust in Sandalfoot. That case, charged as a felony sale, was “no-filed” by the county prosecutor. In between that arrest and now she’s had a couple of civil cases relating to animal ordinances, but there’s nothing else we can find in the records.
Ms. Martin’s reported address is deep into the Sandalfoot trailers south of Judge Winikoff, not far from Tradewind Road. She was released on bond early Friday morning.
Representing the youth movement in our arrest news, Justin Bowman (17) was arrested Wednesday on what looks like burglary of an emergency vehicle. He was released on bond the next evening. His reported address off Lakeridge, northwest of 441 and Yamato. The property is owned by an absentee landlord based in Maryland.
Mr. Bowman appears to be a past or possibly current student at Olympic Heights High School. We weren’t able to find much about him, but we did find what appears to be a school survey project that includes him, and it sheds some light on the situation. The presentation is embedded below, but may be hard to navigate for some. Here’s a statement that seems to come from Mr. Bowman:
Bullying, crime, gangs and self-image appear to be important topics within his world and for those around him as well. Maybe, just maybe, our system is not doing a great job of helping kids like him.
