O.C. pet store owner asks that puppy-thief case be dropped

An Orange County pet store owner has accepted the apology and restitution from two puppy thieves and has asked authorities to drop criminal charges, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The pet store got at least two communiques from the thieves — the first, received at the shop Friday night, in a package containing $600 in cash and a note of apology. Then on Saturday, one of the thieves called the store to apologize again and provided an additional payment to cover sales tax and other fees.

Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said the puppy thieves acted only after his agency contacted the media and television stations broadcast store security camera footage documenting the puppy heist.

“We had 50 tips … and it was just a matter of time that they would’ve been arrested,” Amormino told The Times.

Amormino said the suspects faced serious charges of burglary and grand theft, which are felonies and carry prison time.

Earlier this week, local TV stations aired footage, supplied by the Sheriff’s Department, of a man and a woman shoplifting a chow puppy from Pet City at 7041 Katella Ave. in Stanton, south of Anaheim.

Within two hours of the first broadcast, the store received the $600 in cash and the note of apology. The package was delivered by a passerby, who said he was approached by a woman who gave him $20 to take the envelope to the store’s counter.

Even after the $600 payment was made, Amormino on Saturday morning told reporters that sheriff’s investigators weren’t going to back off from the investigation. Subsequently, the store received the second apology by phone and the payment for the sales tax and “additional money” for restitution. Amormino said he didn’t know how the second payment was made.

Amormino said that the dog taken this week was the third stolen from the pet store and that each time, the animal has either been recovered or the thieves eventually paid for it.

“They cannot escape the Orange County Sheriff’s Department,” Amormino said.

He confirmed that the department has dropped the criminal probe.

[email protected]