2nd fugitive extradited to Berks on theft charges in cash-card ruse that targeted Lowe’s stores throughout U.S.
A Michigan man that’s been accused who was wanted by law enforcement authorities in several states for stealing power tools from home improvement stores by deploying cash-card trickery is being held in Berks County Prison following his extradition to Pennsylvania.
Lavish Boxley, 27, of Mount Morris, Mich., was jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail following arraignment July 17 before District Judge Dean R. Patton in Reading Central Court.
Authorities said Boxley was extradited from Georgia and transported to Pennsylvania by Berks County deputy sheriffs.
Further details about how he was in custody in Georgia were unavailable.
Boxley joins his co-defendant, Donald L. Lemon, 26, of Flint, Mich., in the Berks jail.
Lemon was extradited five months ago to Pennsylvania from Kentucky. He was held for court after a February preliminary hearing before District Judge Kim L. Bagenstose in Hamburg and returned to the Berks jail in lieu of $50,000 to await further court action.
In January 2023, Berks officials declared both Lemon and Boxley as fugitives after attempts to locate them were unsuccessful.
Spring Township and Tilden Township police departments charged both men with felony retail theft and conspiracy charges from for crimes alleged to have been committed during 2022 at the Lowe’s Home Improvement stores in those municipalities.
Tilden Township police officer Frank Cataldi said Lemon and Boxley deployed a ruse that was being used at a number of Lowe’s stores throughout the country a couple of years ago.
Investigators said they would work together, each in turn selecting merchandise such as faucets, laundry detergent pods, electrical switches and Lowe’s Protection Plans—items with a combined retail value of nearly $2,000—and proceed to checkout. There, they would insert a cash card into the card reader as if they were paying with the card, then tell the cashier they needed to hit the cash button so the funds would transfer over.
The funds did not transfer, however, because the cash button activation caused the register to override the card reader. They were long gone before the store would discover the cashier had been tricked into canceling the amount owed.
Eventually Lowe’s caught on to that type of scam and eliminated that kind of theft, Cataldi said.
When they started investigating Boxley and Lemon as possible suspects based on surveillance footage, they discovered that law enforcement officials in Illinois, Arkansas, Virginia and other states had identified the pair as suspects in similar scams at Lowe’s stores in their jurisdictions.
