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JAMIE JONESSmugness may have finally done in a fugitive scam artist who kept in touch with his FDLE nemesis.
Special Agent Telly Sands could always recognize his voice.
"I'm out in California," the caller said, several months ago. "The surf's knocking. I think I'm gonna have me a nice seafood dinner."
It was David Leroy Jenkins - thief extraordinaire, charismatic, suspect in numerous scams across Tampa Bay.
Sands helped put him in prison in 1994 for bilking elderly women of antiques and jewels. But he was released in 2001 and appeared to be at it again, Sands said.
Last summer, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and the 39-year-old Jenkins seemed to disappear.
But he always found time to call. Once a week, sometimes more. Taunting, teasing.
On Monday afternoon, the telephone rang again inside Sands' Tampa office.
"Telly, they got me," Jenkins said.
He sounded depressed, tired.
"Are you coming for me?" he asked.
Telly Sands first heard his name in the early 1990s.
Agents got a tip that Jenkins had been posing as an estate liquidator. He would target elderly men and women, offering to sell their jewelry, antiques or furniture. Then he would give them little or no money in return.
Sands, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for 17 years, learned Jenkins and others were suspected of robbing more than 50 people in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties of roughly $1-million in antiques and collectibles.
He was good. Tall and affable, with hazel eyes and brown hair, Jenkins was as charming as his father, Leroy Jenkins, the traveling faith healer and evangelist.
In 1994, with Sands' help, Jenkins was convicted on multiple counts of grand theft and scheming to defraud. He received a 40-year sentence, reduced to 15 after he agreed to testify against others.
From prison, he occasionally contacted Sands, ratting on other inmates, she said. He was released in March 2001 with credit for good behavior.
It wasn't long before she was on his trail again.
First, she heard about two men scamming elderly women in South Florida. Victims named Jenkins and his father as the culprits. (Leroy Jenkins has opened a church in Ohio and is preaching in Fort Myers this week, according to his Web site. He did not return a call for comment.)
About that time, Sands learned of another scam in which men posed as Wal-Mart and Target employees, offering expensive televisions at reduced costs. They stole cash from victims without providing the televisions, Sands said.
Several victims identified David Jenkins in photo lineups. Jenkins disappeared soon after authorities issued warrants for his arrest.
Typically, he called Sands once a week, sometimes twice or three times.
Turn yourself in, Sands told him.
Jenkins refused. He wouldn't go back to prison.
Last summer, Sands got a postcard from Austria.
"Hope you're well," it read. "Best wishes - David."
Sometimes, Jenkins was drunk and screamed into the phone. Frequently, he bragged about his freedom. Several times, he discussed his philosophies about crime: If someone had more than they needed, Jenkins believed, he was entitled to part of it.
"I was uneasy about him being out there," Sands said.
But always, she listened.
"I was hoping he'd slip up, tell me where he was," she said. "I wanted him to bury himself deeper."
Over time, he did.
Jenkins opened a bank account in St. Louis, using a fake Social Security number, authorities said. Federal investigators traced the account to a post office box in St. Louis.
When Jenkins arrived Monday, officers were waiting.
He ran from a Social Security Administration agent and then assaulted him, said Assistant U.S. Attorney David Rosen.
On Wednesday, Jenkins was indicted for identity theft and assaulting a federal agent. When that case is over, he will face grand theft charges in Florida.
He called Sands again Tuesday.
"I hope you don't hate me," he said.
She doesn't.
She hopes he goes to prison for a long time.
"He has," she said, "ruined many people's lives."