A Bay Area serial thief who has been busted 90 times for shoplifting has been arrested again just hours after he was released from prison, according to local reports.
Jesse Leonardo Otero, 44, is known for targeting California businesses as well as several local police departments that have dealt with his antics repeatedly over the years, KRON reported.
He was recently picked up by police outside a shopping center in Pleasant Hill, about 20 miles east of Oakland on Dec. 8.
He had been released from the Martinez Detention Facility jail on misdemeanor charges just hours earlier the same day, the outlet reported.
The career criminal allegedly hurled insults and abuse at a KRON reporter who asked him, “Jesse, aren’t you sick of getting caught?” because he was handcuffed outside the mall.
Otero, who was homeless, survived and supported his drug addiction by shoplifting and then selling the stolen items, police told the store.
Jesse Leonardo Otero, 44, has been arrested 90 times for shoplifting in the California Bay Area. CRON
He is known to police throughout the Bay Area, where he travels on BART trains to raid different communities to commit crimes.
His long rap sheet shows him going after both small businesses and big stores — and returning so often to steal from them again that many store employees know him on a first name basis.
“Ever since we started finding out who he was, we’d call him by name and say, ‘Jesse — you’re not allowed in here,'” Daisy Erns, store manager at Five Little Monkeys toy store in Albany, told KRON.
Otero is usually cited or briefly jailed before he is released back onto the streets again.
Otero is known to several police departments in the Bay Area, where he has repeatedly targeted stores. CRON
He rarely stole more than $950 worth of products, according to police, which kept him from jail because of a 2014 state law change.
That year, Californians voted to raise the criminal charge threshold for theft from $400 in stolen property to $950, making most theft crimes a misdemeanor, according to the outlet.
The police then had no choice but to release him despite his incredible criminal record.
“Nowadays, the way the filing standards have changed and the law is written, if it’s a petty theft under $950, he’s given the same ticket you would get for running a stop sign,” Pleasant Hill police officer Jacob Williams told KRON .
“So the person is no longer incarcerated based on shoplifting alone – even if we know the previous convictions of his criminal history,” he said.
Otero is currently in jail after his latest arrest. It is unclear if or when he will be released.
Otero now faces a 31-count misdemeanor complaint that is being consolidated for his arrest in 2023.
He was also arrested on Nov. 21 in Concord after committing a theft at a mall. He ran onto the interstate highway as he tried to get away from police before he was arrested.
Just days later on Nov. 24, Otero stole $340 worth of merchandise from a bike shop in Danville, according to the owner.
The Contra Costa DA’s office filed a consolidated 31-count misdemeanor complaint against the career criminal — compiling his 31 arrests in the past year into one case, KRON reported.
District Attorneys in the Golden State can consolidate cases for repeated crimes into one case, like the one Otero is facing.
His misdemeanor jury trial is scheduled for the last week of the year.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
