FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Police announced the arrest Monday of a shoplifter who they said was caught in the act inside a Fort Lauderdale T.J. Maxx store last week as stunned customers watched it happen.
Authorities identified the suspect Monday as 22-year-old Withmark Polycarpe.
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Detective Ali Adamson, a spokesperson with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, confirmed that Polycarpe is facing charges in this case as well as in an additional, unrelated case.
A Local 10 News photojournalist was in front of the T.J. Maxx off Cordova Road last Tuesday night when Polycarpe returned to the scene and gave back the stolen goods.
Ashlee Reyher said she was shopping at the store that same afternoon when she started recording a man stuffing a suitcase with merchandise.
“The manager proceeds to come up and says, ‘Really, you’re going to do this right in front of us?’” Reyher told Local 10 News on Wednesday.
The man walked out of the store with the bag, she said.
Later that evening, Local 10 News was in the store’s parking lot when Polycarpe, carrying a large suitcase and duffel bags, was approached by security.
The security guard asked him to return the stolen items, and Polycarpe eventually complied, handing everything over.
Polycarpe faces multiple charges, including petit theft, petit theft from merchant, probation violation, resisting an officer without violence, battery on an officer, firefighter or EMT and advertisement of drug paraphernalia.
As of Monday evening, he was being held at the Broward Main Jail without bond.
Local 10 News reporter Hannah Yechivi contributed to this story.