BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A 36-year-old Melrose man was sentenced to a year in prison after video and a license plate reader assisted police in connecting him to a shoplifting crime.
Kevin Aurther Ratliff was arrested on December 28, 2023, for the February 25 offense of grand theft. On May 29, he pleaded to the felony.
According to a warrant affidavit, a Walmart loss prevention officer told police that a white male left the retailer through the garden exit with stolen merchandise, including a Samsung television and a microwave.
The store employee provided Officer Jarred Altman with a video of the incident and a photo from which the officer could identify the make and model of the suspect’s vehicle, along with the first three characters of the Ford Expedition’s license plate.
Altman wrote in the report that he asked a sheriff’s office deputy to access the data from a license plate reader stationed at the south end of the Starke Bypass and search for a vehicle matching the description of the suspected getaway car. The search yielded a 1997 Ford Expedition belonging to the defendant passing the reader minutes after the theft.
“I ran Kevin Ratliff’s Florida driver’s license, and based on his driver’s license photo compared to the video footage from Walmart, I was able to determine that Kevin Ratliff was the suspect in the shoplifting,” wrote Altman. “Kevin Ratliff also has a Florida inmate release status for trafficking in stolen property.”
The officer added that the value of the stolen merchandise totaled $1,096.55.
The defendant’s prior convictions include grand theft, resisting detainment after theft, retail theft, possession of drug paraphernalia, domestic battery, pawnbroker transaction fraud, and dealing in stolen property.
Ratliff was facing a maximum sentence of five years for the felony.
