A Summerfield man found himself behind bars Monday afternoon after a ring stolen in Sumter County turned up at a Belleview pawn shop.
A Belleview police officer responded to Guns N Gold, located at 6209 Abshier Blvd., and spoke with a Sumter County Sheriff’s Office detective who was investigating a case involving the stolen ring. The detective told the officer that 53-year-old John Michael Chiulli had pawned the ring on July 16, a police report states.
The victim and her daughter were also at the pawn shop and they identified the stolen ring. The victim said Chiulli had done repair work at her residence in July and when he was finished, she noticed items were missing, including the 14-karat gold ring that she had owned for 30 years. She identified the unique ring as hers even though it had been smashed, the report says.
After being provided with paperwork from the July 16 transaction that showed Chiulli claiming to be the owner of the ring, the officer and a detective responded to his residence at 10185 S.E. 165th Pl. in Summerfield. They asked him to travel to the Belleview Police Department for an interview and he agreed to do so.
Once at the police station and after being read his rights, Chiulli acknowledged that he had done work at the victim’s home. He said she told him and his co-worker that her husband’s ring was missing and they returned to the residence to help her look for it, the report says.
Chiulli denied taking the ring and claimed that he found the one that he had pawned at the Baseline Landfill in Ocala. When questioned about the ring that was stolen from the woman’s residence, he became “very argumentative” and “remained adamant” that the ring he pawned was found at the landfill, the report says, adding that Chiulli then refused to speak further with the detective without an attorney present.
Chiulli was then taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with dealing in stolen property and providing false owner information to a pawn shop. He was being held on $10,000 bond and his next court date hasn’t yet been set, jail records show.
