A 54-year-old Ocala man faces a felony charge for second-degree petit theft after shoplifting a drone and clothing from a local Walmart.
On November 3, an Ocala Police Department officer responded to the Walmart located at 4980 E Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala in response to a reported theft.
The officer was shown a surveillance video from a theft that occurred earlier in the year on June 27.
The store had been notified about a possible theft from one of the door hosts in the garden center. The employee stated that a man later identified as Douglas Wayne Mason had pushed a store shopping cart with a large drone inside through the garden center.
According to the OPD report, when Mason was stopped and asked to show a receipt, he told the employee that he had brought the drone inside to return it, but the store would not accept the return so he was bringing it back home.
The officer observed Mason entering the store on the surveillance footage at around 4:15 p.m. Mason grabbed a shopping cart, entered the menswear department, selected an orange shirt and a black pair of pants, and put the clothing into his backpack.
Mason entered a bathroom and emerged wearing the orange shirt and black pants. He then proceed to enter the electronics department, placed a drone in the shopping cart, removed part of the wrapping on the drone, and headed to the garden center.
The video surveillance showed Mason leave the store with the clothing and unpaid drone, and he left the premises in a vehicle.
The officer ran a criminal history check on Mason and discovered that he was previously convicted of the following: felony larceny in 1990, grand theft of a motor vehicle in 1997, and third-degree felony grand theft in 2000.
Mason was already being held at Marion County Jail for unrelated charges. He now faces an additional felony charge for second-degree petit theft.
A court date has been scheduled on December 7 at 9 a.m., according to jail records.