A sharp-eyed Fruitland Park woman stopped a crime in progress Saturday afternoon as she confronted two men stealing packages from her neighbor’s porch.
She witnessed an older model white Ford Explorer drop off two men in front of the neighbor’s house directly across the street from her home on Eagles Nest Road. The Explorer drove away after the men got out. She saw the two men walk onto the front porch of the neighbor’s house and pick up two packages.
She confronted the two men as they walked down her neighbor’s driveway carrying the packages. She asked the men what they were doing and they claimed they lived there.
She is a close friend of her neighbor and knew they were lying. She told them she would be calling the police. The man holding the two packages, later identified as 18-year-old Emanuel Roman of Fruitland Park, dropped them. Both men fled on foot.
Lake County sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene where they immediately began a search for the two men and the white Ford Explorer.
A Fruitland Park police officer had already stopped the white Ford Explorer and questioned the driver. She said that she had been contacted by Roman, her Hungry Howie’s co-worker. He told her he needed a ride so she picked him along with the another man. She took them to the Eagles Nest Road address. She told the officers she did not know the other man.
A deputy contacted the Hungry Howie’s manager who told him the suspect had just arrived at work. The manger told Roman to wait for the law enforcement to arrive, but Roman ran from the pizzeria.
Roman was apprehended after a seach by law enforcement and informed he had been captured on surveillance during the porch package theft.
“Did I look good on camera?” he asked.
Roman did not identify the man who accompanied him on the heist.
Roman is facing charges of burglary, theft and resisting arrest without violence. He was booked at the Lake County Jail and released after posting $7,000 bond.
