Stolen Property and Retail Theft Lawyer in Tempe, AZ

Tempe licenses its own pawnbrokers. The city's pawnbroker license page requires a Tempe license, renewed every year, and fingerprints from every owner so that Tempe Police can complete a background investigation. The same page says a separate charge on each transaction is collected by LeadsOnline and managed by the police department. For someone who pawned an item, that means the sale may sit in an electronic record the department can see, with the item description and the seller's identification attached.

Bicycles and scooters have their own trail. Tempe Police partner with Project 529 Garage for bike and scooter registration, which owners can do online or through the app, and the department says registration significantly improves the chance of getting stolen items back to their owners. A registered bike listed for sale, or found at a traffic stop, can therefore connect quickly to a theft report. Reports themselves are easy to make: Tempe's online list includes shoplifting, theft and theft of a bicycle, for incidents inside the city that did not happen at Arizona State University.

Detectives work out of the Investigations Division, where the Major Crimes Section includes a Property Crimes Unit; the city does not describe that unit's work. The Technical Services Bureau adds a Crime Analysis and Intel Center for pattern work and a Property and Evidence unit, which stores what officers seize and documents each transfer. When several thefts share a buyer, a vehicle or a storage unit, analysts and detectives can link them into one case.

The charges are defined by what the State says you intended. Trafficking, under A.R.S. 13-2301, means selling, transferring or otherwise passing stolen property to someone, or acquiring it with the intent to do that. Recklessly trafficking is second degree trafficking in stolen property, a class 3 felony under A.R.S. 13-2307. First degree, a class 2 felony, is reserved for someone who knowingly plans, finances, runs or supervises the theft and the trafficking together. Organized retail theft under A.R.S. 13-1819 is removing merchandise from a store without paying, intending to resell or trade it, or using an artifice, container or device to help remove it, and it is a class 4 felony for one person or a group, whatever the merchandise was worth.

A narrower path stays local. If you are accused only of keeping something you knew or had reason to know was stolen, with no plan to pass it on, that can be charged as theft under A.R.S. 13-1802(A)(5), which is graded by value. When the item is valued under $1,000 and Tempe Police wrote the report, the city prosecutors generally bring that misdemeanor in the Fifth Street courthouse. A DPS or Sheriff's Office case can be assigned to a Maricopa County justice court instead; check the court on your paperwork.

Felony charges go to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in most cases. The Arizona Attorney General's Office takes some retail theft and trafficking matters, often where the alleged ring operated in more than one county or a state agency built the case. We handle these matters whichever office brought the charge. After a felony booking into the county jail, the first hearing is at the Intake, Transfer and Release facility, 2670 S. 28th Dr., Phoenix, within the 24 hours Rule 4.1 allows, and release terms in a retail case can include staying out of named stores.

Avoiding jail is not the same as avoiding a conviction. A trafficking or organized retail theft conviction is a felony, which makes a person a prohibited possessor under A.R.S. 13-3101 until the right is restored, with a separate federal bar. A.R.S. 13-603(C) requires restitution for the economic loss the court determines. An organized retail theft conviction also counts among the prior offenses in A.R.S. 13-1805(I) that can turn a later shoplifting into a class 4 felony. Jobs in resale, retail and cash handling can be affected, and a person who is not a U.S. citizen should get immigration advice before any plea.