PORT CHARLOTTE — Charlotte County Sheriff’s detectives arrested a North Port woman on 17 felony charges after she stole $4,306 jewelry from her employer in the Town Center Mall. She then sold the jewelry to a gold buying shop in the same mall and a North Port pawn shop. Arrested was Alexandrea Lia McArthur, 20, of the 8200 block of San Jacinto Avenue. Deputies responded to an employee theft call at 3:42 p.m. Monday and met with the manager and loss prevention officer of the Piercing Pagoda, 1441 Tamiami Trail. They advised that store employee McArthur had stolen several pieces of jewelry from the store. They said they were contacted by the manager of Gold Pros, also in the mall, who suspected one of their employees was stealing from their store and had just sold two silver bracelets, a gold chain, and a gold ring to them. The owner and security officer went back to their store, conducted an inventory, and found those items and several other pieces of jewelry were also missing.

The store owner and security confronted McArthur and she told them that she stole the items and sold them at Gold Pros and a pawn shop in North Port for the money. Detectives obtained eight separate transactions with McArthur’s Florida driver’s license and thumb print from Gold Pros. McArthur was arrested on eight counts of dealing in stolen property, eight counts of false verification of ownership, and one charge of grand theft. She remains in the Charlotte County Jail on $67,500 bond.