Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Florida Mom Stole From Target and Posted Video on TikTok: Police

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

TikTok influencer Marlena Velez was charged with petit theft after Cape Coral Police said she paid for items at Target using bar codes from cheaper items. Someone identified Velez from a surveillance photo and a video from Velez's TikTok account showed her shopping at Target on the day of the alleged offense. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy has the details in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Lisa Greenberg https://www.instagram.com/capepd/Kaysia Earley https://x.com/EarleyforJudgeCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Police in Florida put out the call to ID a woman they say stole from Target. Turns out, cops say she put the entire thing on TikTok, and they say it wasn't your typical theft. I take a look at the case of Marlena Velez. Welcome to Crime Fix, I'm Anjanette Levy. A lot of people post on TikTok and a lot of people shop at Target, but the combination of a Target run and TikTok landed Marlena Velez in jail. Let's go back to

the beginning. Back on November 20th, police in Cape Coral, Florida got a call from Target where employees said a woman in this photo was in the store shopping and she checked out. Now, the original incident actually happened back in October, but it wasn't reported to police until November. Now, this wouldn't be a problem typically, and usually that wouldn't warrant a call to the police. But police say Velez scanned barcodes for cheaper items than the ones that she took from the store. And that's a big problem. Police only had this surveillance image of Velez from Target. So they put it out to identify her. Here's a Cape Coral police spokesperson. We actually had one person

reach out on Instagram and say, hey, I want to remain anonymous, but here's their name and date of birth and their Instagram handle. So from there, we were able to look up her social media and even find on TikTok, she posted a video that day of herself going to Target, buying these items and then taking them home with her. Everything was documented, even the outfit that she wore. It shows like her getting ready with the outfit and even her glasses and all of that matches in the TikTok with the attempt to identify photo that we put out. So there you heard it. Cape Coral police say someone recognized Marlena Velez and reached out on social media. And as you heard, Velez posted the shopping trip on TikTok for her more than 300,000 followers. You can see Velez is wearing the same tan clothes and she picked up a number of items at Target, including a big Stanley mug. She gets

the items and then puts them in the back of her car. In all, police say that Velez took 16 items and the total lost was $500.32. Velez was booked into the Lee County Jail on charges of petty theft of more than $100, but less than $ 750. Velez billed herself as a mommy vlogger and bragged in videos about how much money she was making. In one video, she was quoted as saying, "'If I have any advice, it's just to keep posting. "'Keep posting anything and everything. "'Who cares if it gets 20 views?

"'Just post it. "'Stop waiting for the right time. "'Once you believe in yourself, so will others. The caption read, there are so many opportunities you may be passing up because you're scared to pick up that camera and film content. Get ready with me to talk about the elephant in the room. And now Velez has posted a new video on TikTok as she puts makeup on without speaking. Velez's mugshot is positioned in the background and on the bottom it says in part,

while there will be a time to discuss my wrongings, now is not that moment. And it doesn't mean I don't want to speak on it or take accountability for my actions. It means everything is still being dealt with in the court. So I just ask to please respect that. I also want to be clear that this doesn't define who I am and it doesn't reflect the person I strive to be. I want to tell you about Upside. It's a free app

that gets you cash back on things like gas, groceries, and restaurants. This is real cash back. It's money that appears in your Upside app that you can transfer straight into your bank account. I used Upside recently when I went to Dunkin' Donuts for a cup of tea. I claimed an offer for Dunkin' on the app, paid as usual using a card, and followed the steps and got cash back. It's so easy. You can also use Upside at places like Shell, Exxon, 7-Eleven, Taco Bell, and that's just to name a few. To find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download Upside or scan the QR code on your screen and use our promo code CrimeFix to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CrimeFix for extra cash back. I want to bring in Lisa Greenberg. She's a public affairs officer

with the Cape Coral Police Department. So Lisa, you guys get this call and the woman is accused of scanning barcodes that are for cheaper items. That is still a theft, you know, of items, even though she paid a lesser amount. And the difference was about $500. Yeah, that's right. So essentially our officers were able to determine, along with the loss prevention officers at the Target, that this woman was scanning false barcodes for cheaper items instead of paying the full price for the items that she was actually purchasing. I've gone to Target a million times, and I always use the self-checkout because it's so much faster than going through, waiting in the lines and things like that.

They've got cameras up there. I mean, they're on their game. So they have really good loss prevention monitoring systems there at Target, don't they? They do. And I think the thing that people also don't realize is that maybe they shoplift and they get away with it in that moment. Maybe they walk out, they get in their car and they think that they've gotten away with it. But there are plenty of times where, you know, later on, this case being a prime example, we do end up making that arrest. This case actually happened, I believe it was on October, and we didn't end up making an arrest until almost a month later. So there is times where, you know, you might think you got away

with it because you were able to walk out the store, drive away, take those items home, maybe even wear those items if they were clothing or use them. But the arrest oftentimes comes later. Wow. So there was there was a lag in time between the incident, the alleged incident and the arrest. Yep. In this case, there was. That's a cautionary tale for sure. Just just pay the full amount. One thing that's interesting that's been really interesting to everybody watching this case is the fact that, you know, she's innocent until proven guilty. But she posted this shopping trip and the items that she purchased on TikTok and she had more than 300,000 followers. So that's a major it seems like a critical piece of evidence right there. For sure. Our officers were able to make the arrest without having this information, just based off

of the surveillance image and the facts of the case. However, once they were scrolling through Instagram and then eventually TikTok, we were able to find this exact video where she's wearing the same outfit that she was wearing that day. And the video was posted on the same day that this crime was committed. So we had that as another kind of nail in the coffin here for this case. But yeah, I mean, she posted on the TikTok video, her checking out at the self checkout with some

items. I know that in the report, they mentioned that she bought some household goods and some clothing and things like that. She shows some of that in the video as what she purchased. Thank you so much, Lisa Greenberg. I really appreciate it. Absolutely, anytime. Kaseya Early is a criminal defense attorney based in Florida. So Kaseya, your first thoughts on this case.

Marlena Velez is accused of going into Target and scanning barcodes that are for cheaper items. And she's accused of basically stealing $500 worth of products. Yeah, this is your typical social media influencer gone wrong. And this is a gift to law enforcement and investigators because she basically provided all of the evidence that they needed to send to the state attorney's office to properly prosecute her. And I think this is the downfall of social media. It's a great tool. It can be used to promote your job, your work, but at the same time, there's this addiction of more likes, more followers,

and you'll do anything, push aside your moral beliefs in order to get those likes. And I think this is what the case is. She wanted to grow her TikTok following and Instagram and landed herself in jail. Well, the thing that I find interesting about this, Kaseya, is the fact that this wasn't the first time she's been accused of doing something like this. Court records are showing that she did this at a Walmart store back in July of 2023. She was arrested for the same thing under ringing items at the self-checkout. And it was sixty three dollars worth of stuff for kitchen goods. And she pleaded no contest to those charges back then.

So, yikes, you would think she would have learned her lesson. So she didn't contest those charges now she's accused of doing it again with an upping the ante to 500 so different store uh but wow i mean it just seems really crazy to me yeah different store but same crime and this is what i see as a criminal defense attorney. Sometimes I get these repeat offenders or what we like to call habitual offenders who they don't learn their lesson the first time, second time, or even the third time. But what happens in the criminal court, if you secure enough misdemeanors in the same area, in this case, it would be petty theft, a misdemeanor, it can then possibly blossom into a felony. So maybe she needs more time behind bars

to really see the error of her ways. But this hopefully will allow her to not influence those who are following her to do the wrong thing. And in this case, she was basically teaching them or showing them that, look, I can get away with a crime and film the entire thing. So there may take a harder punishment in this case so that she can avoid doing this again. The thing that really gets me is that stores, I've seen many stories about this on the news about how the stores have thought about even getting rid of self-checkouts because of things like this. So they are well aware that people can either maybe not scan all of the items or under ring or, you know, scan cheaper items and take things. You know, it's

supposed to be a convenience and to speed up the process. And maybe they just like to offer this because it keeps them from having to staff the other checkout lines. But to me, it's like they know this is going on. So loss prevention, you go up and they have the cameras. If you ever go to Target or Walmart, they have the cameras right there. You are on camera. And they have cameras up top too, in the ceilings. So they are monitoring very closely everything that people are doing. Of course. I mean, self-checkout is a convenience for both. It's convenience for the stores because of course they don't have to have the employees to man the checkout counters. And it's a convenience for us. If I have a few items, I prefer the self-checkout as opposed to

waiting in the long line. But as you stated, the problem is it's the few, the few that want to break the rules and commit these crimes. And now the stores are considering pulling back or hiring more staff to watch these surveillance cameras, but the punishment, even if you're a first time offender, maybe this will deter others from committing this type of crime. But it's unfortunate that the good in certain situations, especially like these, have to suffer for the bad. Yeah, most certainly. the social media following. And it sounded as if, you know, from some of the other videos that Marlena Velez was posting that she was bragging that she was making a lot of money on TikTok, posting videos and posting content. So obviously, we don't know her exact financial situation. But, you know, you're making possibly a lot of money possibly from this. Yet you're going in and under ringing things. At least that's the allegation.

She's innocent until proven guilty. So it's just like, why? Well, that's the definition of American greed, right? You can never have too much. And even if you acquire more, you want more. It's never satisfied. This is self-gratification of, you know, I want more. I want it for free. I want it for less. I want to know how to get around or get away with it.

It's the thrill. But unfortunately, these life choices and decisions typically end up bad. In this case, not only does she have to deal with the consequences of having another arrest record, paying for a defense counsel, paying for restitution, and everything else that follows along with it. I think in this case, a judge should be wise in the sentencing, whether she decides to take this to trial, which would not be wise. But if she pleads no contest again, I believe that the judge should instruct some type of anti-theft course or some type of community service to give back, to teach her a lesson other than another slap on the wrist, because I do not believe she learned her lesson. And this

is the mindset of some of these social media influencers. They live a false life sometimes. Maybe she was not making that amount of money and trying to project who she really was. And in order to live up to this quote lifestyle, she had to resort to breaking the law. So we need tougher punishment. And this is coming from a defense attorney because we have to deter this type of behavior so that it won't happen again. Kaseya, have you ever had a client who did something and then posted the evidence on social media? Because it is all there on a silver platter. We haven't seen the target surveillance footage, but I assume they're gonna, you know, if this thing even goes to trial.

And through the side by side, yeah. It's a petty theft charge. You know, they're gonna put it all together. Here we go. Here's the target surveillance footage and here's your TikTok. And if they dig a little further, I do believe that they'll also find witnesses who may, can speak to her character as long as it's admissible

evidence. Because in this case, the way that the store, the detective was tipped off, an anonymous person called in after they saw the surveillance video and gave her name and date of birth. So clearly someone knows her or someone recognized her. But to answer your question, I do get clients from time to time. Everything is on surveillance camera or social media. Could it be a felon who's convicted and should not be in possession of a gun and lo and behold, they're on social media posing with their gun. Or there's times when they take selfies and they're in a room and what appears to be drugs. So, I mean, you would think that these people, my clients, would be a little wiser, but sometimes bad

choices could cloud your judgment. And exactly in this case, she filmed the entire crime and her evidence will be the best evidence used to prosecute her. Kaseya Early, thanks so much for joining me to talk about this. You know, it seems like there's always some interesting stuff coming out of Florida. Oh, yes. I agree. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.