PORT ST. LUCIE — An 18-year-old man was arrested Monday after a grocery store alarm sounded during an attempted fried chicken heist, according to a police report released Tuesday.
A manager at the Publix in the 3200 block of Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard told investigators he saw a man “acting very suspicious.”
The man, later identified as Philipp Defay, of the 1200 block of Southwest Fountain Avenue, was “pacing throughout the store” with a box of deli fried chicken, the manager said.
Defay passed the cashier aisles and asked about a job application before walking toward the back of the store, where another manager watched him go through the back store office and try to leave with the chicken, valued at about $8.
He dropped it after the store's alarm went off and walked to the front where a manager confronted him.
Defay was taken to the St. Lucie County Jail on a charge of attempted retail theft.