A Leesburg man who found an iPhone in Wawa and refused to return it promptly wound up being charged with stealing it.
Felix Vargas, 47, of 10916 Westmont Road, was charged with grand theft of between $300 and $5,000 in connection with the incident, which happened Wednesday morning at the store located at 1400 W. North Blvd.
The victim told a Leesburg Police officer she left her iPhone 11 Max with a black case, valued at $1,100, somewhere in the store and couldn’t find it. She said she used another phone to call her number but it went straight to voicemail, according to the police report.
The victim said she then received a return call from an unknown man – later identified as Vargas — who said he had her phone and asked for her iPhone passcode to confirm ownership. He said he wouldn’t give it back without the passcode. The victim asked Vargas to return her phone at Wawa and she would be calling law enforcement. Vargas requested prosecution, the report said.
The victim said her husband then spoke with a different man on the phone. This man said he wanted to meet to turn over the phone, according to the report.
About 15 minutes after the officer arrived at Wawa, the second man returned with the victim’s phone. He said his brother picked it up off the donut shelf. The man said his brother left with the phone to keep it safe from people who were staring at it, the report said.
The man refused to identify himself or cooperate with law enforcement. He started resisting and was taken to the ground. The man was injured and eventually had to be taken to the hospital by EMS, according to the report.
While the officer was tending to the injured man, another officer canvassed the parking lot and found Vargas, who agreed to give a written statement. In the statement, Vargas said he was at Wawa at around 8:30 a.m. and walked past the donut shelf and saw a cell phone. He said after he paid for his coffee, he saw the phone was still there, the report said.
Vargas said there were other people staring at the phone so he “grabbed it.” He said he waited for the owner to call so he could return it. Vargas said he received a call from someone on the phone he found and he returned the call from his personal phone. He said he spoke with the victim and was told law enforcement was contacted. Vargas said he drove back to Wawa to return the phone to its owner, according to the report.
Asked why he didn’t just turn the phone into Wawa management, Vargas said he didn’t think of it at the time. Because he deprived the victim from the use of her property and didn’t make any attempts to return it until he was contacted and law enforcement had been contacted, Vargas was charged with theft, the report said.
Vargas was taken to the Leesburg Police Department for booking and then to the Lake County Jail. He was released Wednesday on $2,000 bond and will appear in Lake County Court on March 8.