LITTLE ROCK — A Ward man charged with commercial burglary in Lonoke is expected to be charged in multiple cities across Arkansas and three other states in the theft of about $300,000 worth of merchandise and cash from cell-phone stores, a Lonoke County sheriff ’s official said.
Lonoke County sheriff’s deputies arrested Michael Grand, 24, at his girlfriend’s house on South Hickory Street in Ward on Jan. 2.
Grand is a suspect in burglaries of Russell Cellular stores in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Cabot, Beebe, Stuttgart, Magnolia, Lonoke and Searcy, and in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, said sheriff’s spokesman Lt. James Kulesa.
The burglaries occurred in the last three months of 2012. Grand had once been employed at one of Russell Cellular’s 37 Arkansas locations, Kulesa said. The company is a Verizon Wireless retailer.
“It obviously appears he had a plan. It wasn’t random,” Kulesa said. “He kind of knew what he was looking for.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, Grand had been charged in Lonoke and Magnolia. He is being held at the Lonoke County jail in lieu of a $10,000 bond. The Lonoke Police Department charged him with three counts of commercial burglary, two counts of theft of property and one count of conduct constituting criminal attempt to commit theft of property, department spokesman Lt. Randy Mauk said.
Grand confessed to burglarizing a Russell Cellular and an AT&T store Oct. 12, both at 45 Fannie Lane in Lonoke, and the Russell Cellular store again Dec. 15, taking about $20,000 worth of merchandise and cash, Mauk said.
Mauk expects another arrest to be made in the Dec. 15 burglary, in which Grand is suspected of having an accomplice.
Magnolia Police Department officers charged Grand with commercial burglary and theft of property over $5,000 and requested that his bail be set at $100,000, Kulesa said. The Magnolia investigator assigned to the case did not return a phone message.
Grand will likely be charged with at least 21 counts of commercial burglary in Arkansas, Kulesa said, but it is not known yet how many total counts he will face.
“When you get multiple agencies involved like this, there is a lot of coordination having to be done,” Kulesa said.
Stolen smart phones and iPads, along with a small amount of marijuana, were found at the house where Grand was arrested, Kulesa said. Investigators from the Sallisaw Police Department in Oklahoma initially tracked Grand down in connection with two burglaries of Russell Cellular stores there.
“This was a good case of agencies having leads or information and passing it along to other agencies,” Kulesa said.
In addition to the Arkansas cities, Grand is a suspect in cell-phone store burglaries in three cities in Louisiana, two in Oklahoma and in Texarkana, Texas.
He is thought to have burglarized one or more cellphone stores five times in Little Rock, Kulesa said. Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis did not release when or where those burglaries occurred.
“No information as to location and dates of possible suspected burglaries can be released at this time for fear it will interfere with the investigation,” Davis said in an e-mail Tuesday.
The North Little Rock Police Department is prepared to charge Grand with four counts of commercial burglary and four counts of theft of property, spokesman Sgt. Brian Dedrick said. About $50,000 in cell phones and cash was stolen from the Russell Cellular store at 13236 Crystal Hill Road in North Little Rock on four occasions from Oct. 3 to Dec. 14.
In Searcy, Grand is a suspect in three burglaries at the Russell Cellular on South Main Street that took place from Dec. 9 to Dec. 15, a Searcy police official said.
Grand is thought to be connected with one burglary in Cabot, two in Beebe and two in Stuttgart, all at cellphone retail stores, Kulesa said. Phone calls to those police departments were not returned Tuesday.
Grand confessed to all of the burglaries to a Sallisaw police investigator, according to Sallisaw Police Chief Shaloa Edwards.
A spokesman for Russell Cellular could not be reached Tuesday.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/09/2013