FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A determined Spirit Airlines passenger was on a mission to find her stolen luggage.
She found out that it ended up at a Fort Lauderdale house.
Now, an airport employee has been arrested and charged with grand theft, and the incident was caught on camera.
Paola Garcia stood at Carousel 4 inside Terminal 4 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport watching fellow passengers retrieve their luggage.
She was in a panic.
“In my mind, I’m thinking I need my computer because I go to the university, I need my computer no matter what,” Garcia said. “I was waiting there at least two hours.”
Garcia said she always carries her pink hard-shell suitcase onboard with her, but this time she said she was forced to check it, and the suitcase never arrived at the conveyor belt.
That’s because as she was waiting, according to an arrest affidavit and pictures, 29-year-old Junior Bazile apparently had her suitcase in the back of an airport retail store where he worked.
Pictures obtained as part of the investigation show him rummaging through it.
The police report says he took a MacBook and other items out and then placed Garcia’s suitcase in a clear plastic bag.
Garcia’s MacBook, two Apple watches, an iPad, jewelry and designer clothes were all taken.
Back in the terminal and unaware of the theft, Spirit Airlines employees told Garcia not to worry.
“We sent your luggage to your house, so I give my address to Spirit,” she said.
But the next morning, her Apple watch was sending a signal, but not from the airport.
“So you’re at home and your watch is pinging at a house in Fort Lauderdale?” asked Local 10 News’ Jeff Weinsier.
“Fifteen minutes from the airport,” Garcia answered.
“So you decided to go to this house?” Weinsier asked.
“Yes, because I said how can Spirit deliver my suitcase there,” she said. “Yes, because I needed my computer. I have test that day.”
The Apple watch signal was coming from a house at 1017 NW 11th Ct.
When she arrived, she said she saw suitcases all over the place, so she started to take video and called 911.
“The first thing the police told me was like, ‘What are you doing here? This is so dangerous for you to be here,’” Garcia said.
A Broward Sheriff’s Office detective put the address of the house through an internal airport database and found Bazile, who worked for a company that operates retail stores inside FLL.
He was working the day Garcia’s suitcase was stolen.
Bazile had already gotten rid of the items when confronted by authorities.
He was arrested and charged with grand theft.
Weinsier went to the house to ask about all the suitcases Garcia saw there and to talk to Bazile, but he wasn’t home.
Instead, Weinsier had a seven-minute-plus cordial conversation with his mother, who never asked him to leave and answered his questions.
“The police come in here and they don’t find nothing,” she said. “Nothing in my house. Nothing in my house.”
When told that at one point Garcia’s Apple watch was pinging from her house, she suddenly began to lash out, grabbing Weinsier’s station ID right off his neck and refusing to give it back.
She then started screaming for help and asking to be put on camera, which she already was, and struck Weinsier.
She then claimed that she was the one being hit.
Police officers were called and saw the entire interaction, which was all on camera.
Weinsier elected not to press charges for her physically assaulting him.
Several days later, Bazile was in court for a status hearing on the grand theft charge.
When asked by Weinsier about stealing the items, all he said was “go away” over and over.
In a statement to Local 10 News, Spirit Airlines said:
“We issued a reimbursement check to the guest as a courtesy, even though we are not currently aware of any evidence that any Spirit employee was involved. We take any allegation of this nature seriously, and we are investigating.”
Reimbursed as a courtesy?
An airport spokesperson said passenger bags checked with an airline are under that carrier’s care and responsibility.
A spokesperson for Paradies Shops, which is the company Bazile worked for inside the airport, released the following statement to Local 10 on Wednesday: “Paradies Lagardère takes this matter very seriously. Immediately upon learning of the incident, this employee was terminated. As this is an ongoing police matter, we have cooperated with the investigation and recommend reaching out to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for more information.”
Is this part of a bigger ring?
“Personally, I don’t think it’s one person working in the airport, I think it’s a group,” said Garcia. “One person can’t just do that, take bags.”
The police reports don’t say how Bazile got his hands on the suitcase.
BSO officials said this all remains under investigation.