Deputies Recover Baseball Cards, Arrest Man
POSTED: Tuesday, March 18, 2008
ORANGE PARK, Fla. -- Less than 24 hours after a burglary of baseball cards valued at more than $100,000 from an Orange Park business, a man is arrested and charged with the crime.
Before dawn Monday, a cinder block was thrown through the window of Dan's Sports Cards on Blanding Boulevard and about 1,100 cards were taken, including a 1958 Mickey Mantle card that was worth $30,000.
An Orange Park police officer remembered being suspicious after stopping David Gonzalez on a traffic stop in the area of the burglary. Authorities said Gonzalez was wearing baseball gloves and dressed in all black.
After sharing that information with a detective, they paid a visit to the apartment complex in Jacksonville Beach where Gonzalez lives.
Investigators said they found broken display cases taken from the sports store in the Dumpster. Inside his apartment, they found the baseball cards and a small amount of marijuana, they said.
"This is one of those things where it's a good officer putting two and two together," said Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler.
After being shown a photo of Gonzalez, the owner of Dan's Sports Cards, Dan Williams, said he knew who he was. He said Gonzalez was in the store on Saturday admiring the cards that were stolen just days later.
"We knew whoever it was had been in and looked at them. It had to be somebody who'd seen them. This wasn't just a random theft," Williams said.
Gonzalez, 27, was arrested Monday night on a marijuana possession charge. He was later transported to Clay County to face burglary charges and a $50,000 bond.
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