A Florida man learned the hard way this past Wednesday that real-life burglary isn’t quite like the movies—especially when your grand escape route involves jumping into a retention pond. Leonardo Cruz Pena is currently drying off in a jail cell after a spectacularly failed rooftop heist.
The security breach began around 3:00 a.m. at the Super America Gas Station on Alico Road. An employee checking the live surveillance feed noticed a guest who definitely wasn’t there to buy snacks.
Lee County deputies rushed to the scene within minutes, but instead of playing a game of hide-and-seek in the dark, they launched a drone. The flying camera quickly spotted Cruz Pena trying to make himself small behind a rooftop air conditioning unit.
When deputies ordered him to surrender, Cruz Pena decided to wing it.
He jumped straight off the roof and sprinted into a nearby pond, apparently hoping a quick swim would throw police off his scent. It didn’t. Deputies fished him out of the water and promptly handcuffed him.
Detectives later pieced together Cruz Pena’s reverse-Santa Claus entry method. He had brought a Sawzall up to the roof, cut a hole entirely through the ceiling, and dropped into the store. Once inside, he pried open multiple cash registers, bagged up cash, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, and then climbed onto a drink cooler to squeeze back out through the roof.
Unfortunately for him, his exit strategy was heavily weighed down. When deputies searched his wet pockets, they found cash, cigarettes, and a spare saw blade. The rest of his loot—a bag stuffed with more money and lottery tickets—was found abandoned up on the roof.
“Criminals can run, hide, or even jump into a pond, but they will not escape the Lee County Sheriff’s Office,” Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said. “Breaking into a gas station is not the way to make quick cash. It will only earn you a quick ride to the Marceno Motel and, in this case, a quick deportation.”
Cruz Pena is now facing a hefty laundry list of charges, including burglary, grand theft, criminal mischief, petit theft, and resisting an officer without violence. While his previous criminal record only consisted of a single DUI, his legal troubles just got a whole lot heavier. Thanks to an active ICE detainer, his stay in the local jail might just end with a one-way ticket out of the country.
READ: “He Hurt Me So Bad”: Voicemail Details Alleged Pennsylvania Assault Leading To Man’s Arrest
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