Leesburg police arrested a man late Tuesday night who allegedly was attempting to burglarize two downtown businesses and a vehicle.
Officers responded shortly before midnight to an area around 5th Street after receiving reports of a suspicious person in the area. The caller said the man, later identified as 24-year-old David Anthony Caruso, had approached her as she pulled into a parking lot across near Magnolia Street and asked for a lighter, a Leesburg police report states.
After telling the man that she didn’t have a lighter, the caller said he approached another vehicle and pulled on the door handle. She said she told him to get away from the car but he told her to “mind her own business” and then walked north on 5th Street toward Main Street, the report says, adding that he also attempted to open doors at a couple of area businesses, which were identified in a Facebook post by the police department as Turners restaurant and Akers Media Group.
A short time later, officers located Caruso hiding behind an air conditioning unit outside a business on N 2nd Street. They noted that he was “extremely intoxicated” and they could smell the odor of alcohol coming from him. He also refused to cooperate and wouldn’t speak with them, the report says.
Caruso, who lives at 100 S 4th St., was questioned at the Leesburg Police Department, where he became “extremely agitated” at officers and denied checking the doors of businesses or a vehicle. He was then transported to the Lake County Jail and charged with two counts of burglary of an unoccupied structure and one count of burglary of a conveyance. He was released Wednesday on $15,000 bond and is due in court May 4 to answer to the charges.
