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The DuPage County State’s Attorney Office has filed 133 felony retail theft cases since Nov. 24, county officials say.
According to DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin, retail theft accounts for just over 40% of the total number of felony charges his office has handled since Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when Christmas shopping traditionally begins.
Asked how the numbers compare to years past, Berlin said he didn’t have specific data but that anecdotally, he has “not seen a surge in retail theft like this ever before.”
Of the 133 felony cases, 61 entailed both burglary and retail theft, according to state’s attorney’s office spokesman Paul Darrah.
Depending on the nature of the crime, retail theft can carry a varying degree of consequences. Retail theft involving merchandise valued at more than $300 is considered a class 3 felony, Berlin said, which is punishable by two to five years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines.
But if prosecutors can prove a person went into a store with the intent to steal, they can be charged with burglary, a class 2 felony, which could result in a sentence of three to seven years in prison, Berlin said.
Since Dec. 18, his office has put out three separate news releases highlighting the string of burglary/retail theft-related arrests it has charged through this holiday shopping season.
In the most recent release Thursday, it reported that 15 people had been charged with stealing from DuPage County businesses since last Saturday.
Of those, arrests included a pair of 23-year-olds accused of taking more than $972 worth of merchandise from the Elmhurst Kohl’s; a trio of adults in their mid-20s accused of taking more than $713 worth of merchandise from the Oak Brook Macy’s; and a 36-year-old accused of taking a $629-valued chainsaw from an Oakbrook Terrace Home Depot.
The highest-valued theft was $2,176 in items stolen from the Naperville Home Depot last weekend by Mariah Jeane Puentez, a 19-year-old from East Chicago, Indiana. Puentez was released from custody pending her next court appearance, which is scheduled for Jan. 22, the release said.
It’s important to prosecute retail theft cases, Berlin said, because “it sends a message that we don’t tolerate it.”
Beyond just the act of stealing, a lot of retail theft suspects, when confronted by authorities, will “they take off running or get in a car and take off at a high rate of speed.”
“It puts the public in great danger,” he said. “At this time of year especially, the malls are packed with people, with families, with kids. We have to do everything we can to protect them.”