Delco Man admits to theft from another employer

NORRISTOWN >> A Delaware County man previously convicted of stealing $125,000 from the Dave & Buster’s in Plymouth where he once worked has admitted to another theft from another former employer.

Freddy Bravo, 34, of the 200 block of South Bryn Mawr Avenue, Radnor Township, was back in Montgomery County Court on Friday to plead guilty to a felony retail theft charge in connection with allegations he stole more than $2,000 in merchandise from the Saks Fifth Avenue store along East City Avenue in Lower Merion where he was working in February 2016.

Judge Thomas P. Rogers, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter, sentenced Bravo to three years’ probation.

Bravo, according to a criminal complaint filed by Lower Merion Police Officer Edward Sarama, was observed by store security personnel on Feb. 25 placing four pair of sunglasses in his lunch bag and two Gucci men’s watches in the men’s shoe stockroom. At the end of the day the items could not be found in the men’s shoe stockroom and had not been put back on the sales floor, police said.

“A bag check was done on Bravo and Saks Fifth Avenue loss prevention discovered the four pairs of sunglasses in his lunch bag and two Gucci watches on his person,” Sarama alleged in the arrest affidavit, adding the total value of the items was $2,385.

The theft from Saks occurred a month after Bravo pleaded guilty, and was free while awaiting sentencing, to a felony charge of theft by unlawful taking for stealing $125,000 from the Dave & Buster’s in Plymouth, a sports-style restaurant where he once worked as an area operations manager, according to court documents. Those thefts occurred between February 2012 and April 2015.

Bravo was sentenced in March to seven to 14 months of confinement, the first 14 days to be served in jail with the remainder of the seven month minimum term to be served under house arrest. The remainder of the total 14 month sentence will be served under intensive probation.

At that time, Judge Garrett D. Page compared Bravo to a “runaway train” that couldn’t stop. Prosecutors said Bravo stole money 1,236 separate times, for a total of $125,000, from the restaurant.

Trying to explain the theft, Bravo told the judge, “I started to live beyond my means.” Bravo also must pay full restitution to the restaurant.

Prosecutors and Plymouth police alleged Bravo developed a scheme under which he voided certain sales and then pocketed the cash at the popular restaurant located on Germantown Pike at the Plymouth Meeting Mall.

Plymouth police said the theft was discovered in April 2015 after an audit by the company’s corporate office and Bravo was immediately suspended.