Two Lehman Twp. residents face retail theft charges after police found over $1,000 in stolen athletic wear from a Viewmont Mall store in their car Monday, police said.<\/p>\n
Anthony Douglas, 55, and Alexis Douglas, 27, both of 256 Bristol Way, entered Dick\u2019s House of Sport at about\u00a0 4 p.m., placing multiple items \u2014 including sweaters, sweatshirts and sweatpants \u2014 in \u201cbooster bags\u201d designed to block signals from security tags, according to the police affidavit.<\/p>\n
Officers would later find bags in the back seat of their vehicle, sitting next to a black pouch containing pliers, scissors and a metal magnet consistent with removing security tags from merchandise.<\/p>\n
Police also found a black garbage bag filled with additional Nike clothing items, with their original price tags and security tags intact, as well as other clothing items, officers said.<\/p>\n
According to the criminal complaint, officers initially responded to Dick\u2019s for the report of a man and woman who had stolen from the store and were attempting to leave.<\/p>\n
En route, dispatchers told officers the man left the mall through its main entrance and the woman through the Dick\u2019s exit directly to the parking lot.<\/p>\n
Both entered a red Ford Mustang and were travelling toward Books-A-Million on Viewmont Drive.<\/p>\n
Scranton police Officer Stephanie Teaman caught up with the vehicle, activating lights and sirens. But the driver, later identified as Alexis Douglas, didn\u2019t immediately stop.\u00a0Instead, Douglas continued toward Business Route 6, before stopping in Denny\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n
Officers approached the vehicle and ordered the two out of the car. Store personnel identified them as the two suspects.<\/p>\n
Both denied having been in Dick\u2019s. Anthony Douglas said he hadn\u2019t been in the mall. Alexis Douglas said she had been only in the Home Goods store.<\/p>\n
When officers began walking around the car, Anthony Douglas said they didn\u2019t have permission to look inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Police advised they were allowed to observe items in plain view.<\/p>\n
Anthony Douglas eventually agreed to a search of the vehicle, where the stolen items were found.<\/p>\n
The total retail value of the recovered merchandise from Dick\u2019s was $1,383.<\/p>\n
Anthony Douglas remains at Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $7,500 bail. Alexis Douglas is out on unsecured bail.<\/p>\n
Both have preliminary hearings scheduled for 9:15 a.m. on March 2 before District Judge Joanne Corbett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Lehman Twp. residents face retail theft charges after police found over $1,000 in stolen athletic wear from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,1099,201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-117379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","9":"tag-dickson-city","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}