Being heading to prison means that the days of the career shoplifter pilfering designer goods are finished. Retail thievery became Defendant Ernesha Atmore’s profession.
The more stringent regulations in Florida have now caught up to her after she spent years in and out of jail for stealing designer items valued at thousands of dollars.
It’s possible that a theft seen on camera a few years prior sealed Hillsborough State Attorney Suzy Lopez’s doom.
“She committed one of the most brazen thefts I’ve heard of. She went into a Sunglass Hut at International Plaza and had a soft-sided cooler, and she just scooped up about $20,000 in designer sunglasses. When the employee said, ‘What are you doing,’ she said, ‘I have a taser.’ And, as you know, a taser is a weapon,” Lopez said.
Atmore stole sunglasses using a soft-sided cooler. Police discovered other stolen items in Atmore’s car when she was apprehended a few days later.
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Now that she has committed many crimes, she faces harsher punishments and decades behind bars. She turned down a three-year offer from the prosecution. She was just given a 30-year prison sentence after a jury found her guilty.
“That’s because the state of Florida has taken a stance on retail theft,” Lopez stated.
The legislature has strengthened retail theft legislation in the past few years, increasing the length of imprisonment and raising the accusations from misdemeanors to felonies.
Atmore had to resolve two more theft cases before she was sent away, one of which involved a jewelry store theft in which she attempted to take a $8,000 ring out of the establishment.
The judge sentenced her to an additional six months. Now, Atmore will disappear for thirty years and six months. She won’t have her freedom back until she is over sixty years old.
