Florida Keys teen stole Star Wars memorabilia, guns and a large-screen TV, cops say
A Florida Keys teen who’s been racking up felony arrests since this summer was arrested in connection with a late September break-in at an Islamorada home where checks, a large-screen TV and hundreds of dollars worth of Star Wars memorabilia were stolen, police say.
Luke Eric Townsend, 19, was already locked up on charges he stole a man’s credit card and bought more than $150 in items from a gas station, when he was arrested Friday on the burglary charges, in addition to grand theft charges stemming from a burglary where several firearms were stolen.
He’s being held on a bond of $275,000.
According to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office detective’s report, on Sept. 29, Townsend and at least one other person broke into the home belonging to a man they know who was in jail on felony drug charges, Tyler Rieke, 25.
Rieke’s mother and her foster son were home at the time of the burglary, but did not wake up while it was happening, Detective Gil Gonzalez stated in his report.
Police watched the Venetian Shores home’s security camera footage and it showed several men walking toward the home around midnight and removing items for about an hour. Security camera footage from the entrance of Venetian Shores showed a white Ford F-150 pickup truck pull into the neighborhood at 12 a.m. with an empty truck bed.
When the vehicle left the neighborhood after 1 a.m., it was full with the television and other items, Gonzalez wrote after reviewing the camera footage.
In an Oct. 3 telephone interview from jail, Rieke told Gonzalez the men seen on the video were there to collect an old television that Reike agreed to store at his house.
He said he heard the men borrowed Townsend’s 2006 white Ford F-150, Gonzalez said.
Townsend and two other men were arrested in the truck on separate warrants on Nov. 2 in Key Largo. They were questioned about the burglary. Townsend admitted to stealing all the Star Wars items, and said another man, Deangelo Dandridge, stole checks belonging to Reike’s mother, according to the report.
Dandridge was arrested in Miami-Dade County Thursday on a felony theft charge, according to court records. It’s not clear if he’ll be sent to the Keys on burglary charges.
One of the other men seen on video entering Reike’s house told police that he was there but went to a friend’s home in Venetian Shores after he learned that the burglary was about to happen. But, he did admit to letting Townsend use his storage unit in Florida City to stow the stolen goods, Gonzalez wrote in his report.
Monroe detectives received a warrant from a Miami-Dade County judge to search the storage unit. In it, they found “70 pieces of Star Wars memorabilia in trash bags” and a stolen gun “from another home which was burglarized by Luke and Deangelo as well,” Gonzalez wrote in his report.
Although one gun was found in the unit, Townsend faces six counts of grand theft of a firearm, according to online sheriff’s office arrest records.
On the stolen credit card charge, Townsend is accused of stealing a man’s wallet on Oct. 24. The man is a construction worker, and Townsend was on the site applying for a job, according to an arrest report. The man placed his wallet on a picnic table underneath his lunch box before it was stolen, police say.
Townsend also has a pending felony drug arrest resulting from a traffic stop in late July.
