Hialeah man arrested for April burglaries from Gainesville plumbers

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Anthony Daniel Bestard, 20, of Hialeah, was booked into the Alachua County Jail overnight on charges of burglary and grand theft.

The burglaries and thefts took place early in the morning of April 21, 2021, to four businesses in an industrial park in the 4600 block of NW 6th Street. Tools were stolen from various trailers, including about $7,000 in tools from Petra Design, about $14,000 in tools from JW Freeman Plumbing, $29,000 in tools from Scarborough Plumbing, and $1,000 in tools plus a trailer containing a Bobcat excavator (worth about $50,000) from Premier Plumbing.

Video surveillance from the area showed a rental truck with at least two male subjects. The truck had been stolen from the U-Haul in Lake City a few hours before the Gainesville thefts. Later in the evening of April 21, Bestard was arrested by the Miami-Dade Police Department in Opa-Locka, driving the stolen truck.

Gainesville Police Department obtained Bestard’s cell phone number from the arrest affidavit and obtained a warrant for geolocation information for the phone. The information, received in June, showed the phone in Lake City around 10 p.m. on April 20, then moving south along I-75. It was connected to a tower near the burglarized businesses for over two hours, then went back up U.S. Hwy 441 to I-75. It was moving southbound on I-75 by 3:30 a.m.

The rental truck pulling the stolen trailer (containing the excavator) was captured at various toll plazas, coinciding with the locations in the cell phone data. Two other cars, one reported stolen and one with a stolen tag, followed the rental truck through the toll plazas. The driver of the second car matched the description of Bestard. However, no co-defendants are listed on the arrest documents. Bestard is being held on $435,000 bond.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.