What began as a traffic stop for not wearing a seat belt turned into an arrest for grand theft and several other charges for a West Palm Beach man accused of stealing a $40,000 Rolex watch from a Worth Avenue jewelry store.
Palm Beach Police took the 26-year-old man into custody early in the morning of June 11 in the 200 block of Royal Palm Way, according to an arrest report. His charges include grand theft, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, failure to register a motor vehicle, attaching a license plate to a vehicle to which it’s not registered, giving false identification to a law enforcement officer and driving with a suspended or revoked license, court records show.
The man pleaded not guilty to all charges and remained at the Palm Beach County Jail on June 16 without bail, according to jail records. He is being represented by the Palm Beach County Public Defender’s office, which as a policy does not comment on open cases.
Palm Beach Police have been looking for the man since March 22, when LaMuse Jewelers on Worth Avenue reported a missing $40,000 blue Rolex Daytona watch, an arrest report said.
The jeweler had hired an Uber courier the morning of March 19 to deliver the watch to JC Martin Jewelers on Forest Hill Boulevard in Lake Clarke Shores, but the watch did not arrive at its destination, the report said. When police reviewed the requested fare on the Uber app, it said the route was about 8 miles and should have taken 24 minutes, the arrest report said.
When police checked license plate reader data, the license plate number registered to the Uber account had not been detected in Palm Beach on March 19, but was seen in Margate on that day, the arrest report said. Police contacted the person who registered the Uber account, and he said that he did not complete any jobs for Uber that month, but let his half-brother, the West Palm Beach man, use the account beginning March 5, according to the arrest report.
Uber’s Community Guidelines, to which all users agree when signing up to drive or deliver for the company, do not allow account sharing, the company said. According to Uber, it has increased account audits to look for fraudulent activity.
Users who suspect that the person who delivers an order isn’t the same person registered with the app should report the account to Uber, the company said.
“Account sharing is strictly prohibited on the Uber platform, and we take violations of this policy seriously,” an Uber spokesperson told the Daily News. “We banned the involved driver account and stand ready to support law enforcement with their investigation.”
A Palm Beach Police detective went to the West Palm Beach man’s apartment and saw the man sitting in a white Mercedes-Benz sedan, then get into a BMW. Both cars had the same license plate from New York, which issues plates in pairs to be placed on the front and back of the same vehicle, the arrest report said.
A Palm Beach police car.
The white Mercedes with the New York license plate was seen in Palm Beach at times that coincided with the Uber courier pickup March 19, the detective found.
Town surveillance cameras showed that when the man left the jeweler March 19, he carried with him the sealed FedEx package that contained the Rolex watch and placed it on the passenger seat of the Mercedes before leaving town, police said.
The man’s wife told police that her husband was with her at a doctor’s appointment on the morning of March 19, and the man told police that he was at a barbershop in Boca Raton that morning, after which he boarded a plane to Puerto Rico, police said.
On June 11, a Palm Beach Police officer pulled over the West Palm Beach man just after 6:15 a.m. because he saw that the man was not wearing a seat belt, an arrest report said.
The man was driving a brown BMW, but the temporary Florida license plate on the car was connected to a white Ford, police said. The man gave the officer a fake name, then provided a Social Security number that was registered to another person, the arrest report said.
The man’s wife drove to the scene and gave police the man’s Florida ID card, the arrest report said. The man does not have a driver’s license — it was revoked in 2024 for five years because the man was declared a habitual traffic offender, according to the arrest report.
The man’s wife also identified surveillance images of the man that had been taken outside of the jewelry store the morning that the watch was stolen, police said.
The report did not say what happened to the Rolex.
In addition to the felony charges the man faces, he also received a ticket for not wearing his seat belt, court records show.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Police: Man hired via Uber stole $40K Rolex from jeweler