According to a public information release from Officer Chuck McPhilamy of the Marietta Police Department, the 47-year-old owner of a pawn shop on Roswell Street, and A 64-year-old employee of the shop were arrested on charges that include theft by receiving and theft by retail fencing.
[The Cobb County Courier has a policy of withholding or redacting the name of suspects unless and until the person is convicted in a court of law or enters a plea of guilty. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty, and the internet has no effective way of removing reports of arrest if the person is exonerated].
The complete public information release describing the investigation and arrest follows (with names of the suspect redacted pending trial and conviction, or plea bargain):
For the last six months the Marietta Police Department (MPD) has been investigating the Pawn World business located at 955 Roswell Street in Marietta Georgia. Tips from the public along with suspicious activity alerted Marietta detectives that the shop may be working with criminals to buy and sell stolen property.
Marietta City code requires all Marietta pawn shops to document the seller of any items they purchase, and then log the items into an on-line database. Over the course of several months, MPD detectives were able to confirm stolen items were both being purchased by Pawn World, as well as resold to the public illegally.
It was also discovered that the store had been operating without a business license for quite some time. Detectives gathered evidence and methodically built their case.
A search warrant for the business was secured earlier this week and was served at 10:30 yesterday morning, December 15, 2020. Once confronted with the charges, the owner of the store, forty-seven-year-old [name redacted by the Courier] of Marietta GA cooperated with investigators. While the inventory of the store is now complete, the investigation continues.
During the store inventory investigators identified numerous items were still sealed in their original packaging. They reached out to the corresponding retailers to confirm which items inside Pawn World were stolen from their businesses. Items recovered included electronics, power tools of all types and assorted sporting goods. Well over (100) stolen items have already been identified and recovered by those retailers, with values in excess of $15,000.
[name redacted by the Courier] and his employee, sixty-four-year-old [name redacted by the Courier] of Roswell Georgia were arrested and booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center. [The owner of the shop] faces three Felony charges including Theft by receiving, Theft by conversion and Theft retail fencing. [The employee] faces two misdemeanor charges including Theft by receiving and Theft retail fencing. Additional charges are possible and will be filed once the investigation is complete.
