Global Courant 2023-05-17 09:54:53
A Florida man is being charged after police say he stole two endangered turtles from a local zoo last year, along with rare comic books, both worth thousands of dollars.
According to the St. Pete Police Department, 46-year-old Joshua McCarty-Thomas stole the two endangered turtles from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Florida on Nov. 30, 2022. The two reptiles are worth $10,000 each and were born at the zoo in 2017 as part of a captive breeding program.
The rare Galapagos tortoises weighed 20 pounds when they were stolen from the zoo, but they can grow up to 600 pounds and live up to 150 years.
The Galapagos tortoise found alive in the front yard of a home in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Police St. Pete.)
Police said the turtles had been microchipped and led authorities to McCarty-Thomas’ home in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, May 16. They found one of the turtles alive and well in the garden and the other was found dead in the freezer.
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After the police scanned the turtle’s microchip, they confirmed that they were the same turtles that had been missing and stolen from the zoo.
Booking photo for Joshua McCarty-Thomas (Pinellas County Jail)
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McCarty-Thomas was charged with grand larceny and additional charges for two commercial burglaries in St. Petersburg and Ocala, with police saying he stole thousands of dollars worth of rare books from Haslam’s Book Store, and Lighthouse Books on Dec. 16, 2022. on October 15, 2019.
He is also accused of stealing valuable comic books worth thousands of dollars from a store in Ocala.
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a writer on Fox News Digital’s breaking news team. You can reach her on Twitter at @s_rumpfwhiteten.
