Man charged with stealing museum's historic bricks

He says he thought the bricks, behind a fence and wrapped in metal straps were unclaimed.

[Times photo: Boyzell Hosey] Bricks more than 80 years old were set aside for projects at the Palm Harbor Historical Museum.

By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 31, 2002

PALM HARBOR -- Richard J. Boyton told deputies he saw the piles of bricks sitting for months on the vacant lot next the the Palm Harbor Historical Museum and figured they were free for the taking.

So he helped himself.

Turns out, the bricks are more than 80 years old. They are considered historical and are owned by the Palm Harbor Historical Society. And they are not free for the taking.

On Wednesday, Pinellas deputies charged Boyton, 43, with grand theft.

The reddish bricks were made in 1918 and were used in the road bed for the original U.S. 19, now known as County Road 1, according to museum director Winona Jones. They were removed recently when County Road 1 was widened and rebuilt.

The county gave 1,440 bricks to the historical society about nine months ago. The museum intends to use them to build a walkway. Nearly 100 also went into a veteran's memorial on the property.

They were neatly stacked on four pallets, well back from Curlew Road and inside a 4-foot-high white picket fence that surrounds the vacant lot and museum. The bricks were bound by metal straps and partly covered with sheets of plastic, Jones said.

Sheriff's spokesman Cal Dennie said a neighbor saw Boyton load bricks into a Jeep between May 18 and 21, and into a Dodge van May 24. On the second trip, Dennie said, Boyton's wife, Lori, 43, and children were in the car with him.

Boyton is charged with taking 300 of the bricks, Dennie said. Deputies estimated their value at $600.

Boyton could not be reached for comment, but Mrs. Boyton said the matter is a misunderstanding, not a crime.

"We didn't consider it theft," said Lori Boyton. "It's on a road on a big, empty lot."

She noted that her husband took the bricks in broad daylight, once with their children in the car.

"We weren't hiding anything," she said.

Mrs. Boyton said neither she nor her husband ever has gotten a traffic ticket, let alone been charged with a crime.

Mrs. Boyton said the bricks were used for a backyard patio at their home on Countrywoods Lane in Palm Harbor. They will be returned, she said.

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