The Polk County Sheriff's Office arrested 42-year old Andrew Sylvester on Tuesday, November 12, 2024.

Deputies were called to a retail theft in progress at around 6:20pm, at the Publix store at 5185 US 98 South in Lakeland.

When the deputies arrived, they located Andrew outside of the store with a shopping cart full of groceries that he had not paid for. The value of the items in the cart was worth 243.92.

A store employee told deputies that this was the second cart of items that Andrew stole in the past fifteen minutes. He had wheeled another cart out of the store about ten minutes prior, and the value of the items in that cart was determined to be worth $206.10.

That was a grand total of $450.02.

Andrew's prior criminal history includes five prior theft convictions. 

Andrew Sylvester was arrested and taken to the Polk County Jail and charged with two felony counts of retail theft.