A man previously convicted of ripping off dementia patients was arrested Monday after allegedly stealing wine at a Publix grocery store in The Villages.
Brian Stanley Pacific, 64, of Deerfield, went into the store at La Plaza Grande at about 3:30 p.m. Monday and used the restroom, according to an arrest report from the Lady Lake Police Department. When he emerged from the restroom, he went to a cash register and grabbed a plastic bag. He was caught on surveillance putting two four-packs of Sutter Home wine into the bag. He left the store without paying for the merchandise. Police found him on a bench outside the store. His shorts were covered in urine.
He was taken into custody on a charge of retail theft. He was booked at the Lake County Jail on $500 bond.
In 2018, Sumter County sheriff’s detectives, assisted by the Lady Lake Police Department, arrested Pacific after an 87-year-old woman’s son discovered a number of suspicious cash withdrawals from his mother’s account. The victim’s son reviewed video and audio from a live streaming video camera in his mother’s residence in The Villages, recorded on the same day as the most recent suspicious withdrawal. The recordings showed a man in his mother’s home, pressuring her for money he said she owed for clearing brush from her yard. The suspect pressured the victim into accompanying him to her bank, where she withdrew $700 in cash. Upon returning to her residence, the suspect was heard admitting he had taken $500 from the withdrawal. The victim’s son said his mother had a regular lawn service, and no additional work had been done at her home.
Upon reviewing the recordings, a detective recognized the suspect as Pacific, whom he had arrested five years earlier in a similar case. Pacific served 11 months and 29 days in the Sumter County Detention Center in that case.