John Jefferson
Left: Benjamin Cummings (Lee County Sheriff’s Office). Right: The cat Cummings allegedly stole (Fort Myers Police Department).
A Florida man is behind bars after stealing a woman’s purse containing a weeks-old baby kitten, police in the Sunshine State say.
Benjamin Leroy Cummings, 34, stands accused of one count of robbery without a firearm or other weapon, according to Lee County Sheriff’s Office records.
The defendant is identified as a transient in jail records.
The incident occurred on Thursday morning, near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Palm Avenue in Fort Myers, the Fort Myers Police Department said in a press release.
During the alleged robbery, police said the defendant stole a bag full of the victim’s belongings.
“Amongst the items in the bag was an approximately one month old kitten,” the press release says.
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The police department’s intelligence unit worked with detectives to review nearby surveillance footage from where Cummings was last seen and recover the woman’s property from the inside of an abandoned vehicle, according to law enforcement.
The purloined cat, however, was not inside the car.
“While investigating the items, the stolen kitten emerged from underneath the vehicle and approached Officers,” the press release reads. “The victim confirmed the kitten to be the one stolen from her during the robbery along with the items inside the vehicle. The kitten was safely returned to the owner.”
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Police did not say how or where Cummings was arrested.
Law&Crime reached out to the Fort Myers Police Department for additional details on this story, but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
Cummings allegedly has a lengthy criminal record dating back to 2005 and over a dozen different booking photos for his various arrests, according to Fort Myers-based CBS affiliate WINK.
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The defendant is currently detained in the Lee County jail on $10.000 cash or surety bond, jail records show.
He is next slated to appear in court on Feb. 3.
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