Victim Set Elaborate Trap to Catch a Thief, Deputies Say

A 37-year-old Tampa man accused of stealing another man’s identity discovered his mark was no pushover.

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the victim, D’Andre Rivers, 23, set quite an elaborate trap to catch the person who stole his wallet during a recent Tampa auto burglary.

Deputies say Rivers was able to track down the person who used his identity courtesy of a car rental company. The thief, deputies say, used Rivers’ credit card and driver’s license to rent the car. When Rivers called to tell the company his identity had been hijacked, the company gave him the contact information the thief used when renting the car.

Hoping to catch the thief red-handed, Rivers called him and set up a mock drug deal, an email to media from the sheriff’s office stated. Several phone calls were exchanged and the man in possession of Rivers’ identification and credit cards agreed to meet him at Westfield Brandon mall on Wednesday to conduct the deal.

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Rivers located the man inside Macy’s and then placed a call to the sheriff’s office to say he’d found his own thief, the email said. Before deputies arrived, however, the man tried to flee, but Rivers and some of his friends were having none of that.

“The victim and his associates tackled him in the parking lot,” sheriff’s office spokeswoman Cristal Bermudez Nunez wrote in an email to media. “The suspect began to punch and kick at them, so the victims defended themselves by punching back. At one point, they believed the suspect had a gun because he kept reaching for his waistband. They then tied his legs together to keep him from getting away.”

By the time deputies arrived at 3:25 p.m., several calls had been placed to the sheriff’s office about numerous males beating up a man in the mall’s parking lot.

When everything was sorted out, Malik McCaully found himself taking a trip to Tampa General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. He was later booked into the Hillsborough County Jail on four charges of battery, third-degree grand theft, fraudulent use of personal information and fraudulent use of a credit card over $100 charges. It seems he managed to not only rent that car, but also rack up another $2,000 in charges on Rivers’ cards, the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies describe McCaully as a “career offender” who just got out of state prison in August. Charges related to the auto burglary are still pending courtesy of the Tampa Police Department, Nunez noted.

McCaully has been released from the Hillsborough County Jail on $8,000 bond.

Photo Credit: Malik McCaully/Hillsborough County Jail