Cricket Wireless employee arrested for stealing multiple phones

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

A Cricket Wireless employee has been arrested for stealing iPhones from multiple stores.

On October 11, an Alachua County Sheriff’s deputy responded to a Cricket Wireless store on US Hwy 441 in High Springs, where the manager told him that Brandon Trey Ball, 23, had been at the Cricket Wireless store on Archer Road on October 8. The manager provided video from their in-store camera system, showing Ball and another employee in a storage room at the Archer Road store. When the other employee left the room, the video showed Ball reaching into a metal lock box and removing a cell phone, then placing it in a cardboard box that appeared to hold some kind of game system. Ball then left the store with that box in his hands. After the store completed an inventory check, they showed an iPhone 12 Pro Max in stock, but they couldn’t find it in the store.

The deputy read Ball his Miranda rights, but according to the arrest report, Ball did not want to answer questions. The deputy told Ball he was going to apply for a search warrant for his vehicle, and Ball gave recorded verbal consent to search his vehicle, stating that the iPhone was not in his vehicle but that there was an iPhone XR in his vehicle that he stole from the Bronson branch a few days ago.

While searching the vehicle, the deputy located 5 different iPhone boxes, all brand-new with cellophane wrappers on the boxes. The deputy also found a box for a VR headset for virtual gaming that matched the one in the video. All of the IMEI numbers on the iPhone boxes matched iPhones that still show in inventory at different Cricket Wireless branches.

Ball is an employee of Cricket Wireless who has worked at the Archer Road and High Springs branches. He was arrested on grand theft charges.