CHRISTIANSTED — A convicted sex offender with a long rap sheet was foiled by smartphone technology when the cell phone he stole from a backpack in Frederiksted told police his current location at a housing project in Estate Richmond on Friday morning.
Omari Horton, 29, of St. Croix, was arrested Friday and charged with buying, receiving or possessing stolen property and grand larceny, the Virgin Islands Police Department said.
According to the probable cause fact sheet, 911 dispatchers sent officers on mobile patrol to Molly’s Tropical Boutique/St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures on Strand Street in Frederiksted town at about 8:40 a.m. Friday in reference to a possible larceny case.
The woman on duty at the front desk of the dive shop told police that she set her gray backpack on a bench outside the business, a sworn VIPD affidavit states. When she went to get it, it was gone.
Inside the $78 backpack was a black iPhone 14, valued at $1,400, the woman informed police.
After the backpack disappeared, the dive shop employee viewed surveillance video of the courtyard area that revealed an adult male had removed her backpack from the bench outside the store, according to the probable cause fact sheet.
“I reviewed the same video surveillance footage and I clearly observed the male individual remove (the complainant’s) backpack from (the) bench,” the officer swore in an affidavit filed in Superior Court. “I immediately recognized the male individual in the video as Mr. Omari Horton. Mr. Horton was wearing a black shirt, long black jeans pants and is approximately 5-feet, 4-inches in height.”
At about 9:00 a.m., officers searched the area outside the dive shop in an attempt to locate the missing backpack. Police found the gray backpack near the pump room on the property, but the cell phone was not inside it.
Officers returned to the dive shop, when the employee was on a computer using the application “Find My iPhone,” to track her stolen iPhone 14, according to the probable cause fact sheet.
The app revealed that the cell phone was now near Building 30 of John F. Kennedy Terrace in Estate Richmond, near Christiansted town, Superior Court documents show.
Officers in Frederiksted called the 911 Emergency Call Center and asked dispatchers to send police to the building in the housing project where the app said it was, according to the sworn VIPD affidavit.
Police in Frederiksted called an officer at the Ancilmo D. Marshall Command in Estate Richmond, and the officer replied that he would recognize the suspect, Omari Horton, if he saw him.
The officer from the Marshall Command met with Horton at JFK Terrace about 9:30 a.m. and found that Horton was in possession of a black iPhone 14, according to the probable cause fact sheet.
Horton was taken by police to the Marshall Command Building in Richmond where the dive shop employee identified the suspect as the man who she had seen on video surveillance take her phone, the sworn VIPD affidavit states. The employee also recognized her cell phone.
At that point, Horton was placed under arrest and taken to the VIPD’s Administrative Building in Mars Hill for booking and processing. Once at police headquarters in Frederiksted, the suspect “voluntarily” admitted that he took the backpack from the bench and stole the cell phone inside it, according to the probable cause fact sheet.
Bail for Horton was set at $20,000. Unable to post bail, he was remanded to the custody of the Bureau of Corrections at the John A. Bell Adult Correctional Facility pending an advice-of-rights hearing scheduled for yesterday at Superior Court.
Extensive Criminal Background
Horton has an extensive criminal record, according to police records. In August of 2019, the suspect was one of three men arrested by Virgin Islands Department of Justice agents for failing to register as a sex offender in the territory, according to Attorney General Denise George.
Also, in September of 2016, Horton was one of three men arrested for third-degree burglary, grand larceny and possession of stolen property in connection to a burglary at A to Z Academy in Estate Orange Grove, police records show. The suspect was alleged to have stolen electronic equipment from the school on April 7, 2016.
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