Palm Beach -Michael Johnson envisioned Shane Anthony Mele sending those commemorative presidential dollars spiraling down a slot, to be converted from $33,000 worth of collectibles to just enough store credit to buy a couple of 12-packs of beer.
“He easily had $33,000 worth, and he dumped it in a Coin Star machine,” Johnson said.
Authorities said Mele, 40, of Riviera Beach confessed he stole rare coins and other items, valued at $350,000, from Johnson’s North Palm Beach office in December.
Mele reportedly said he sold some, then ran many through change machines, where he got just face value.
He told investigators he took some coins to South Florida Coins & Jewelry in Lake Worth, where he said he got about $4,000.
Mele told police he dumped the rest of the collectibles in “Coin Star” machines at area grocery stores. People often trade large stashes of loose coins for store credit, minus a fee of as much as 11.9 percent.
That means if he dropped in the 33 presidential coins, valued at $1,000 each, he got about $29.30.
What have we learned here? Karma is real. How DUMB is this guy?? You steal $350,000 worth of stuff from someone who trusted you to reside in his place of business, you have in your possession presidential coins that are super rare and worht about a grand each, and you deposit them into a CoinStar machine for face value...what an idiot. That's all I have to say on the matter. Criminal Floridian brains are just different I guess... @Traceahamilton