burglary – West Boca News

Car Burglar Arrested – Olympic Heights Alum Caught on Video

The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office arrested Hunter Brett (19) on two counts of car burglary. The arrest happened on Tuesday the 23rd. Brett is a former student of Olympic Heights High School.
On August 15th a reader forwarded us this video showing the car burglaries as they happened:

We posted the video on our Facebook page and commenters helped identify Brett as the likely burglar.
We reached out to the victim in this incident, who said the following:

We are grateful to the West Boca News and its readers for their help in catching this criminal. Let this be a lesson to other criminals that this is a tight knit community and we look out for each other.

Mr. Brett has developed a substantial court history in his short time as an adult. We don’t know what charges he may have faced as a juvenile. What we can see started in December of 2015 with two felony burglary counts and two misdemeanor counts. He was released on $6000 bond (usually meaning someone pays $600 to a bondsman). If you find yourself in a situation where you need a bondsman though, then it might be a good idea to check out a website like johnthebondsman.com.

While that was pending he was arrested in February in Broward facing five different counts including a first degree felony aggravated battery on a police officer, a felony resisting with violence and two drug felonies. He was released on $11,000 bond ($1100 to a bondsman).
For some reason we cannot explain, the pending burglary felonies in Palm Beach County were then resolved with “pre-trial diversion” which is usually a favorable result for a defendant – no jail time and a relatively clean record.
In June he was arrested again on drug charges, at least one of which was a felony. He was released on $5000 bond ($500 to a bondsman).
Now he’s been arrested for a fourth time. It’s not completely clear from the court records but we think bond was set at $23,000 this afternoon.
The last address we have for Mr. Brett is in the Lakes at Boca Raton (north of Yamato near Cain). He is being represented by public defenders on all the cases mentioned. For the first burglary case it appears he was rejected from the diversion program in August and the case has been reopened.
At this writing he remains in custody. Perhaps he will get out and resume visiting area cars again soon. Of course he is innocent until proven guilty. But since it seems likely that he will be doing significant state prison time, some might wonder why they keep letting him out. This soft approach to bail is commonplace in South Florida but unusual in other parts of the state.

Burglaries in Boca Falls & Boca Madera; School on Lockdown

Update: A homeowner in Bayberry (Boca Winds) said she saw two black males in a older white pickup “casing the neighborhood”. They were not young, perhaps in their 30s or 40s, and she saw them two or three times. The location is very close to the Boca Falls burglary in this story and the description seems to match what the homeowner saw when she walked in on the burglars.

Two burglary incidents attracted a lot of attention in the past 24 hours, one yesterday afternoon in Boca Falls and early this morning in Boca Madera.

Mystic Cove in Boca Falls; image by Google

Readers alerted us to an incident yesterday in and near Boca Falls at the west end of Glades Road and Palmetto Park Road. Several police cars were seen, some on Glades Road near the Boca Falls entrance with others on or near Palmetto. Readers also saw a police helicopter. We arrived on the scene about an hour later and saw one police car at Palmetto and Riverside along with the helicopter.
One of our readers described the incident as he heard it:

[The homeowner] walked into her house and her house was being robbed! She saw them and they saw her and then they ran out the back and she ran out the front. They did take items from her house. From what she said, they came in by piggybacking through the gate.
Hopefully word will get out and our neighborhood will take precautions and this doesn’t happen again!

Various sources tell us that police were looking for two black males in a white pickup; the pickup “piggy backed” through the gate near Waters Edge Elementary School; Waters Edge went on a “Code Yellow” lockdown for about an hour; and that Boca Falls was already considering measures to improve gate security and this incident is likely to accelerate changes.
The reference to piggy backing is when an unauthorized vehicle follows closely behind an authorized vehicle to get through a gate before it closes.
Another reader forwarded us this notice from Waters Edge Elementary:

Please know that for everyone’s safety, we were on a Code Yellow today from approximately 12:25-1:25 pm due to some unusual activity in Boca Falls– we are now “All Clear”. All students and staff remained in the building and they did a fabulous job following our expectations. We appreciate everyone’s support during this time.

So far there’s no indication as to whether the burglars were caught or not.
We should note that crime maps show incidents like this are rare in gated communities, and West Boca has one of the lowest crime rates in Palm Beach County and South Florida.

Early this morning there was a burglary in the Boca Madera neighborhood which is on the east side of Jog Road north of Glades near the St. Andrews School. It’s inside the city line but still what we consider West Boca (west of Military Trail). Boca Raton Police notified the community (via Facebook and Twitter) of the incident and warned residents to stay inside.

Not too long after they followed up with an all-clear notice:

WPTV reports that two men were arrested after a search was conducted by Boca Raton PD and a PBSO helicopter. We do not see any blotter entries that fit yet, but it was only a few hours ago and usually takes longer than that for them to show up.
Note that the correct spelling of the neighborhood is Boca Madera (Madera is Spanish for wood), not Madeira (a Portuguese wine).

Suspect Wanted for Burglarizing Boats

From the Palm Beach Sheriff:
Suspect Wanted for Burglarizing Boats located at a Storage Facility in Unincorporated Delray Beach.
A total of four boats were burglarized. The unknown suspect helped himself to Yamaha Engines ‘lower units’, along with GPS systems, and rods/reels.

The incident took place on the 13000 block of Military Trail, just north of West Boca.

The suspect was carrying a black cloth tool box which can be seen in a photo in the corner of the boat with the straps sticking up. He seemed to be well versed in boat mechanics as he did not damage the center consoles when removing the electronics and was very clean.

The suspect is a white male, approximately 6’0”, 170 lbs., has dark hair, clean shaven, wearing camouflage shorts, a black tee shirt, black ball cap with unknown emblem, and black gloves.
If anyone can identify this suspect they are urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.

Two Arrested After Chase in Sandalfoot Cove

After creating a major scene in Sandalfoot Cove yesterday, two young men were arrested and charged with multiple felonies. Adonis Batista (left in the above photo, age 20) is listed on the Sheriff’s blotter as a resident of the Edgewood Apartments on the east side of 441 just north of Sandalfoot Square. Deaundre Archer (right, 19) is a resident of Coral Springs.
We first learned of the incident from the following alert:

•••WEST BOCA••• FOOT PURSUIT — Sandalfoot Blvd @ State Rd 7 — Multiple PBSO units are in an active foot pursuit of 2 black male perpetrators, vehicle bail-out, multiple different stolen goods from various local residential robberies, perps fleeing thru an apartment complex by SW 66th Ave & Sandalfoot Blvd, K9 and Eagle Helicopter are enroute to assist

We contacted PBSO and received the following in response:

Just after 2 pm today, there was a burglary “in progress” in the 22400 block of SW 56th Way, Boca Raton. Two suspects fled from nearby deputies, a perimeter was set up and a short time later both suspects were arrested. All stolen property was recovered.

This morning we found their entries in the Sheriff’s blotter. They were not formally booked until 3 am. Both remain in custody, each facing three counts of burglary (unarmed) and two counts of grand theft.
We see no criminal history for Mr. Batista. Mr. Archer has had three cases this year in Broward, including a felony grand theft.
While we are no longer covering arrests in general, this was a major incident. It involved deputies on a foot chase, a perimeter set up, police K9 unit, and a helicopter.

Burglary & Weapon Charges Against West Sandalfoot Felon

Emmanuel Padilla (above, 28) was arrested Wednesday on several felony counts including burglary, grand theft, grand theft of a vehicle, marijuana possession, giving a fake ID to a police officer, resisting, grand theft of a firearm, and possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon.
Mr. Padilla, a resident of the Watergate Estates community in West Sandalfoot, has a substantial history in the Florida court system. Most notably he spent nearly four years in state prison from 2010 to 2014, on similar charges to his current arrest, from Palm Beach and Broward. He was released on May 27th of 2014.
Before that he had felony cases in Broward in 2006 and 2008, and a 2008 felony case in Palm Beach. He even picked up a disorderly conduct in Miami-Dade in 2005.
Court records indicate that two of the new counts against Mr. Padilla are for offenses that allegedly took place in July of 2014, a little over a month after he was released from prison.
Mr. Padilla also had a DUI case in June of 2014, less than a month after his release, but prosecutors dropped that one. He remains in custody at this writing with bond set at over $200,000.
Of course all defendants are innocent until proven guilty.