By Dave Ress
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
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RICHMOND, Va. — Over the course of more than a year in 2023 and 2024, a trio from Hampton Roads kept coming back to the same Ulta Beauty store in Short Pump to shoplift fragrances.
The arrest of two Portsmouth women in January 2024, after a car they were in nearly hit a Henrico County police officer responding to the store’s call of shoplifting, opened one of Virginia’s first investigations into a new crime: organized retail theft.
A month later, police arrested a Norfolk man, charging him with theft of $2,240 of cologne from that store in June 2023. The warrant said one of the Portsmouth women grabbed the fragrances while the man helped her flee.
As police investigated, they charged the two women with an April 2023 theft of $7,035 worth of perfume and cologne from the store. They filed a charge against one of the women in the June 2023 theft. They charged the Norfolk man, Nykee Remono Newby, with two additional thefts from the Ulta store in August 2023, as well as with organized retail theft.
Newby pleaded guilty earlier this year and was sentenced to five years in prison. The women’s cases are pending.
The legislation making organized retail theft a crime was meant to address what retailers say is a growing headache — shoplifting gangs. The measure was one of the hardest fought in the 2023 General Assembly session.
It says anyone who works with another person to steal more than $5,000 worth of goods over a 90-day period, or who conspires for such theft, is guilty of a felony punishable by at least five years in prison.
“Organized retail theft isn’t ‘petty shoplifting’ – it’s a coordinated crime that endangers employees, hurts small businesses, and drives up costs for every family,” said former Del. Kathy Byron, R- Lynchburg, who sponsored the bill.
She said she carried the bill to give law enforcement real tools and raise penalties that deter criminals.
“I thought it was important to directly target the bad actors, the ones perpetrating the retail crime,” she said.
Democrats initially opposed the measure, terming it a backdoor method of reversing legislation enacted in 2020. That legislation increased the trigger for making larceny a felony from thefts of goods worth $500 or more – one of the lowest in the nation – to $1,000. Stealing more than $1,000 worth of goods is punishable by imprisonment for at least a year.
Both the House and Senate bills, as introduced, set a trigger for the organized crime charge at $1,000. The Senate Judiciary Committee amended its version to set the $5,000 trigger and increased the trigger on the House bill when it came before the body.
While the Senate approved that version of the bill by 27-13, it did not quieten House Democrats’ concerns. The revised measure only eked through the House on a chiefly party-line vote of 52-45.
“This makes shoplifting racketeering,” Del. Vivian Watts , D- Fairfax , said at the time.
Shortly after the General Assembly enacted the new law, the National Retail Federation , a trade association, reported that organized retail crime was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, aiming to support claims that the nation was seeing a surge in shoplifting. But a few months later, the federation retracted the report, saying it was based on faulty data, while saying organized theft was still a serious problem.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, meanwhile, said the pace of arrests for organized retail theft is growing, from seven convictions in fiscal year 2024 to 20 convictions in the fiscal year that ended June 30, and 27 more since July 1. That is a 35% increase from the last fiscal year’s total.
“This increase in convictions is a testament to the effectiveness of our efforts,” he said in a report to the General Assembly.
To help with enforcement of the new law, Miyares launched the Virginia Organized Retail Theft Exchange, which he said is the first statewide intelligence-sharing platform of its kind.
It enables retailers, police, sheriffs, and prosecutors to share offender information in real time, allowing them to connect crimes the same people commit in different localities.
More than 300 agencies and retailers participate, and Miyares said the exchange has already helped identify multi-state theft rings.
Henrico police cracked one multi-state case. Authorities say it began shortly after noon on Feb. 27, 2024, when Officer Keith Campbell spotted a man in the self-checkout line at the Target store on Staples Mill Road . Police say the man had several calculators hidden under his clothing in his shopping basket.
When Campbell approached the man to offer assistance, the shopper “became visibly uncomfortable, stated he left something in his car and left the store, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Rachel Rosswog said. She soke at the court hearing this year at which New Yorker Kyle Charles, 37, pleaded guilty to three grand larceny counts. Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a count of organized retail theft. They also dropped five additional counts of grand larceny. Charles was sentenced to a three-year prison term.
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About a half hour after Campbell’s encounter with him, Henrico Officer William Walker saw Charles at the Target at 10100 Brook Roa, Rosswog said. He loaded a shopping cart and left the store without paying for the items, and then came back to the store, loading another cart, and left again without stopping to pay, the prosecutor said.
Five days later, Officer Selia Lewis saw Charles load a basket with clothing, bathroom items and appliances, and leave the Target on South Laburnum Avenue without paying, Rosswog said. The officer spotted his red Kia and got a partial license plate number. That eventually led police to a Pennsylvania booking photo of Charles and further work led to a photo of his New York state ID, which matched the Pennsylvania booking photo and Target stores’ surveillance video, Rosswog told the court.
The investigation showed he had shoplifted items at the Target store at 5401 West Broad St. about three weeks before Campbell spotted him, authorities said. They said follow-up checks with Target and other police departments found he stole from Target stores in Chesterfield, Hanover, Arlington and Fairfax counties. Target also connected him with thefts in New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Massachusetts, authorities said.
He mainly stole graphing calculators and coffee mugs that could be programmed to keep a drink at a specific temperature, Rosswog said.
Authorities said he took goods valued at $6,800 from the Henrico stores.
Katie Robbins, a Target employee focused on preventing left, told the court that Charles had stolen merchandise valued at more than $100,000 from stores across the eastern United States .
“I’m not even going to lie,” Charles told the court before sentencing.
“Even though it’s just shoplifting … it’s still something major because, like you said, people get affected by these things.”
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