Ormond Beach, FL – Deputies say alert neighbors helped them catch 2 men who tried to steal fishing poles from a garage at a home near Ormond Beach.
32-year-old Steven A. Nelson of Ormond Beach and 29-year-old Jeremy M. Levine of Daytona Beach – both with lengthy booking records at Volusia County Jail – were arrested around 8pm Sunday on the 100 block of North Halifax Drive in Ormond Beach.
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office says it all started around 6:30pm Sunday when a woman who lives near the 3700 block of John Anderson Drive called 911 to say she spotted a suspicious man going into the open garage of one of her neighbors.
According to the call, the woman said she spotted a suspicious dark green Jeep Cherokee going through the neighborhood very slowly while towing a boat and that’s when she and other family members saw a man get out of the Jeep, enter a garage whose door had been left open and grab 2 Penn Captiva fishing poles valued at around $400 each.
The VCSO incident report shows the man who entered the garage – later identified as Levine – drop the poles when one of the witnesses shouted at him and take off running southbound on John Anderson.
The woman gave 911 the license plate number as the Jeep drove away, allowing VCSO and Ormond Beach police officers to find the Jeep on North Halifax Drive a short time later and pull it over without incident.
The report shows that one of the witnesses got on a white Yamaha motorcycle and followed the Jeep as it left the area while another witness ran into the allegedly burglarized home and found the homeowner inside and unaware of what was going on.
When questioned during the traffic stop, both Levine and Nelson – who was driving the Jeep – admitted to stopping in the neighborhood after fishing at Highbridge Park and that Levine went out of the Jeep to look at the fishing poles in the garage because they looked like a pair that had been stolen from him recently.
A woman who was a passenger in the Jeep the entire time told VCSO that Levine ran back into the Jeep soon after running away from the garage and hiding in a wooded area nearby.
The report also shows that she told VCSO that both Levine and Nelson got nervous about the motorcycle following them and that neither one of them wanted to go back to jail nor head back to Nelson’s home with the motorcycle right behind them.
Levine and Nelson were arrested after VCSO interviewed all the witnesses and reviewed the security video footage from the home that was allegedly burglarized, per the report.
Nelson posted bond and left VCJ after he was charged with grand theft and burglary. VCJ records show Nelson has been booked there 8 other times since August 2002, including most recently in September 2014 on a burglary charge.
As for Levine, VCJ records show he’s been booked there 24 other times since October 2003, primarily on burglary charges. He also left VCJ after posting bond on charges of with grand theft and burglary.
Steven A. Nelson (mugshot courtesy VCJ)
Jeremy M. Levine (mugshot courtesy VCJ)
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