Two suspects have been arrested in the theft of items at the hospital auxiliary’s Ye Olde Thrift Shoppe in Lady Lake.
An investigation revealed that two people at about 2 a.m. Thursday had gone to the dumpster area at the thrift shop at 106 W. Lady Lake Blvd. and used a pair of bolt cutters to access the dumpster, according to an arrest report from the Lady Lake Police Department. The incident was captured on surveillance. A pair matching a similar description had used the same bolt cutters four days earlier to break into the same dumpster.
The suspects, 37-year-old Robert Wesley Allen and 36-year-old Tina Marie Morrison, were taken into custody shortly before 9 a.m. at U.S. Hwy. 27/441 and Griffin View Drive. A pair of red bolt cutters and a pair of scissors were found in a backpack carried by Allen. He claimed he and Morrison had been trying “to find clothes to wear.”
Allen and Morrison, both of Leesburg, have lengthy criminal histories. Allen’s history of arrests includes an incident in which he was taken into custody earlier this year with a stolen electric bicycle at Chick-fil-A in The Villages.
Both were arrested on charges of burglary and booked at the Lake County Jail.
The Ye Old Thrift Shoppe serves as a fundraiser for the hospital auxiliary at UF Health-The Villages Hospital.
