20-Year-Old Palo Alto Shoplifting Suspect Arrested, Found With Nearly $20,000 In Stolen Merchandise
PALO ALTO (CBS SF) -- Officers arrested a 20-year-old woman suspected of shoplifting from a store in Palo Alto and found her to have thousands of dollars of additional stolen merchandise in her car, police said Monday.
The robbery happened Saturday afternoon at the Victoria's Secret store at the Stanford Shopping Center. Palo Alto police officers responded after a store loss prevention officer reported that a woman was in the store who had committed prior shoplifts.
As police waited outside and the loss prevention officer watched, the woman stuffed more than $1,600 worth of clothing into a bag she had brought with her and left the store without paying, police said. Officers then detained the woman without incident. She was identified as 20-year-old Jaleila Sharee Blaettler of San Francisco.
According to police, arrived at the shopping center in a black 2015 Mercedes C300 registered to her, but which had a license plate stolen from another vehicle in San Francisco. Inside the car, police located more than $19,000 in property stolen from other Victoria's Secret stores in Fairfield and San Jose, as well as from a prior theft at the Palo Alto store.
Officers also found two iPads that had been stolen from Victoria's Secret stores that belonged to the business, and an additional license plate that had been reported lost or stolen off a vehicle registered in Rancho Cordova, police said.
Blaettler was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for felony commercial burglary, felony possession of stolen property,
misdemeanor possession of stolen property, and misdemeanor possession of burglary tools for the bag used to conceal the stolen merchandise.
Anyone with information about the shoplifting incidents was asked to call the Palo Alto police 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.
