Mugshot of Ronald Mosholder. By. THE VIRGIN ISLANDS POLICE DEPARTMENT
ST. THOMAS — A man with a Nevada driver's license is currently awaiting trial for burglary and fraud after allegedly stealing checks from the office of a beach bar and cashing or depositing them in his own bank accounts.
According to court documents, police were alerted on October 12 when a senior employee of the company that manages Sapphire Beach Bar filed a report. The company representative said some checks that had been left in the office for vendors were missing.
When the company's bank was contacted to place a stop payment on the four missing checks, bank officials informed that one of the checks, in the sum of $9,500, had already been cashed. Two other checks, totaling over $2,400 had been deposited into an account at another bank. Company employees followed up and found that none of the individuals to whom the checks had been written had collected them from the office.
Police were provided with a surveillance photo from October 9 that showed a man who was not authorized to be in the office after hours. Identified as Ronald Mosholder, surveillance footage shown to police depicts him walking through the hallway and removing checks from a cork board where they had been pinned. The footage then allegedly showed Mosholder entering the beach bar's office itself. He is reportedly captured taking another check from the office before leaving the premises.
A few days later, police were able to confirm that three of the missing checks were deposited into Mosholder's bank account. Surveillance footage from the issuing bank shows him cashing the fourth check on October 10.
Having been informed by his roommate that Mosholder was planning to leave the country, police alerted Customs and Border Protection officials to the possibility. On October 17, CBP officials told police that they had detained Mosholder at the Cyril E. King Airport. The boarding passes in his possession indicated that he had confirmed flights from St. Thomas to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with an onward connection to Atlanta, Georgia.
Once police caught up with Mosholder at the airport, he was arrested and charged with third-degree burglary, four counts of obtaining money by false pretense, and four counts of grand larceny.
Unable to post initial bail of $25,000, Mosholder was remanded into custody to await his advice of rights hearing.
In court on Friday, Magistrate Simone VanHolten-Turnbull found probable cause to uphold the charges against Mosholder. The judge ordered that bail be modified to allow the defendant to post 15% in cash to secure his release from detention ahead of trial. Unless given explicit permission to travel by the court, he will be required to report to the local probation office twice a week in person.
His next court appearance has been scheduled for November 8.
