A Florida man learned the hard way that real-life burglary isn’t quite like the movies—especially when your grand escape route involves jumping into a retention pond. Leonardo Cruz Pena is currently facing multiple charges after a spectacularly failed rooftop heist at the Super America Gas Station on Alico Road.
The Incident
The security breach began around 3:00 a.m. when an employee checking the live surveillance feed noticed a guest who definitely wasn’t there to buy snacks. Lee County deputies rushed to the scene within minutes and launched a drone to locate Cruz Pena, who was trying to hide behind a rooftop air conditioning unit.
When deputies ordered him to surrender, Cruz Pena decided to jump straight off the roof and sprint into a nearby pond, apparently hoping a quick swim would throw police off his scent. It didn’t. Deputies fished him out of the water and promptly handcuffed him.
Charges and Aftermath
Detectives later pieced together Cruz Pena’s reverse-Santa Claus entry method. He had brought a Sawzall up to the roof, cut a hole entirely through the ceiling, and dropped into the store. Once inside, he pried open multiple cash registers, bagged up cash, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, and then climbed onto a drink cooler to squeeze back out through the roof.
Cruz Pena is now facing a hefty laundry list of charges, including burglary, grand theft, criminal mischief, petit theft, and resisting an officer without violence. Thanks to an active ICE detainer, his stay in the local jail might just end with a one-way ticket out of the country.
Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.
