If there was ever a bad time to forget you are wearing an ankle monitor, this was it. A North Miami Beach man was arrested this week after investigators say his court-ordered tracking device quietly placed him at his neighbor’s home during a string of break-ins that left the owners short more than $93,000 in Rolex watches, gold and silver collectors’ coins, and other valuables. Police say the monitor’s location logs laid out a timeline that tied him to the burglaries.
North Miami Beach police were called out on Jan. 28 after a report of an open front door and found signs that someone had forced their way in through a kitchen window. While officers were still at the scene, they say 37-year-old Kovelman Williams pulled up, stopped on the victims’ front lawn, pulled a hoodie over his face and then rode off on a gray scooter. Officers stopped him about a block away, where he gave his name, birthdate and address and later falsely claimed to be a confidential informant. Investigators photographed his ankle monitor and, after securing its location logs on Feb. 9, say the device placed Williams at the victims’ home multiple times between Jan. 3 and Jan. 25, according to Local10.
How the monitor helped investigators
Police say they later used the same monitor data to track Williams to the area of Northeast 167th Street and 15th Avenue this week and take him into custody, a result officials point to as an example of how electronic monitoring can quietly do some investigative heavy lifting. State lawmakers have also moved to toughen penalties for tampering with ankle monitors and to require bond revocation in certain cases, a shift supporters argue bolsters accountability for defendants who are out pending trial, as reported by FOX10…