A 22-year-old Los Angeles man who worked at a Santa Monica Nike store was arrested and charged with embezzlement on Wednesday, Oct. 28, after admitting to giving an accomplice more than 40 pairs of shoes to a friend for free during a six month period.
At 3:38 pm officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were asked to go to the Nike Store, located in the Santa Monica Place Mall after the department had received a call from store management informing them that an employee had been suspected of embezzlement.
The officers were told en route that the employee was in the custody of store loss prevention agents at the store.
When the officers arrived the officers spoke with the loss prevention agents who told them that they had evidence to suggest that the suspect had, over a period of six months, taken thousands of dollars worth of merchandise by way of a scheme that involved an accomplice.
The loss prevention agents said that the accomplice would enter the store, pick a pair, or multiple pairs of Nike shoes and go to the counter where the suspect would only charge for a small item of much lesser value.
The loss prevention agents presented to the officers one such example of the scheme that had been caught on surveillance video.
This video evidence showed the accomplice handing the suspect two pairs of Nike shoes but the suspect only charged for a pair of socks.
The accomplice left the store with the shoes after the “transaction” had been completed.
The loss prevention agents told the officers that they had information pertaining to the identity of the accomplice but were not able to provide it at that time.
The officers questioned this L.A. man and he admitted to giving the accomplice more than 40 pairs of shoes during the past six months.
The officers arrested the suspect and he was charged with embezzlement with bail being set at $20,000.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of The Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
