The guilty plea of one defendant in a string of shoplifting incidents at a local business was the result of an ongoing investigation by a Gray Police officer that was aided by store surveillance videos.
Tiffany Monique Beasley, 40, of Macon, was in Jones County Superior Court May 12 to enter her guilty plea. She received a sentence of seven years each for three charges of theft by shoplifting and 12 months for the charge of possession of drug related objects. The sentences are to run concurrently for a total of seven years to be served on probation.
Beasley was banned from Ace Hardware and from Jones County for the duration of her sentence. The plea agreement includes her testimony against codefendants.
Beasley was arrested May 4 with codefendant Leon Fluellen, 50, who was charged with four counts of shoplifting as well as the possession and use of drug related objects.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Cara Fiore, and the plea was accepted by Superior Court Judge Terry Massey.
Fiore told the court that GPD Officer David Simmons was conducting an investigation into the shopliftings since March. She said codefendants Beasley and Fluellen were seen on store videos beginning March 10.
A report of the March incident by Officer Parker Jones lists merchandise taken in the amount of $1,925. A report by Simmons states he received a call to come to the store May 4 because the same suspects from March were on video from the previous day taking hand tools.
The officer said he watched the video and saw the female with a tote bag, which she proceeded to fill with assorted tools. The suspects left through the garden center and got into a blue Jeep Liberty.
Simmons said later the same day, he received a call that the suspects were back in the store. He said he informed GPD officers Josh Josey and Terius Farley, who arrived at the scene and took Beasley and Fluellen in custody.
Josey’s report of the arrests states he and Farley located the blue Jeep Liberty used by the suspects and blocked it in. The officer said the suspects were apprehended in the parking lot as they left the store.
Josey said drugs were found in the vehicle as well as a Generac Generator, bolt cutters and metal cutting shears.
Simmons’s supplemental report stated that Beasley and Fluellen were attempting to leave the store with two tankless water heaters May 4, and they were identified as the same suspects from previous shopliftings March 10 and March 15.
