No, he wasn't the new guy
A man in khakis and a polo shirt blends in at an office, then steals laptops, police say.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published April 25, 2007
TAMPA -- Eric Almly tried to blend in.
Before he walked into Outback Steakhouse's parent company, he shaved. He slipped into a clean polo shirt and khakis, he told police.
He spent the day hanging out in common areas at OSI Restaurant Partners. When closing time came, he stayed behind. He told police he grabbed 11 company laptops from cubicles, then took them back to his oceanfront condo on Miami Beach.
There, he got online and sold the computers, he told police. One went to Latvia, another to Taiwan.
"He just figured that a corporation like Outback would just kind of write it off, absorb the loss and move on from there," said Tampa police Detective Larry Brass. "He walked in, posed as a visitor and just mingled."
That's what Almly told Tampa police when they showed up at his beach bachelor pad Friday to arrest him on charges of theft.
Almly, a 33-year-old with chiseled features and a lengthy criminal record, was held Tuesday in a Miami jail. He also had a warrant for his arrest from San Diego, where authorities accused him of stealing computers from another corporation.
When police first got word of the thefts, which occurred March 27 or 28, investigators wondered if it was the work of an insider. They found no sign of forced entry. The computers had been taken from the fifth floor of the corporate headquarters at 2202 West Shore Blvd.
But they received information that someone was selling the laptops on eBay. They subpoenaed records from eBay and figured out the sales all came from an address in Miami Beach.
So on Friday, Sgt. James Contento and Brass flew south. They found Almly in a one-bedroom apartment in an art deco condo building. He used the fanciest Outback laptop to get online and sell the others, police said.
Officers say Almly told them that's how he makes his living.
Some of the laptops he sold had been acquired legitimately. He would buy them, then flip them for a couple of hundred bucks. Others he stole from large corporations, just as he had from Outback and the San Diego company, Brass said.
Almly said he planned the Outback job after he met a Tampa woman on the beach in Miami. The pair hit if off, and Almly came to visit her for three days, police said. During the trip, he dropped by Outback and took the computers, Brass said.
Almly grew up in Minnesota. His family could not be reached for comment.
He had five criminal convictions in that state in 1992 and 1993. Among the charges: receiving stolen property and burglary, records show.
Police say he then moved to Arizona and California before settling in Miami. California records list Almly as the defendant in two criminal cases, one in 2004, the other in 2006. No information about the charges was available.
Brass has two of the computers. Three are on their way to police. They're still trying to get the others, he said.
The buyers will get their money back from eBay, Brass said, according to the company's policy.
Times researcher John Martin and Times staff writer Scott Barancik contributed to this report. Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 813 226-3373 or vansickle@sptimes.com.