There are easier ways for a 35-year-old man to come up with $50 than allegedly stealing it from a bunch of kids selling lemonade.
But police in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, say that is the option Chapel D. Lighty chose.
Four neighborhood boys had been running a lemonade stand Aug. 19 when they stepped away for a moment. Surveillance video shows a man walk up, grab the plastic container holding their earnings and take off.
The boys had made about $50. The alleged thief’s head start lasted roughly 20 minutes.
He Didn’t Get Far
Police were called after the money disappeared, and officers began searching the area.
Hasbrouck Heights Police Capt. John Behr told Daily Voice that investigators obtained video from a nearby business showing a man walking south on Boulevard before grabbing the entire container and running away.
Police identified the suspect as Lighty, of Bishopville, South Carolina.
Detective John Cambridge told CBS New York that officers kept searching after reviewing the video and talking with witnesses.
About 15 or 20 minutes later, Cambridge checked Woodland Park.
There, sitting on a bench, was a man wearing the same clothes seen in the surveillance video.
At his feet, Cambridge said, was the now-empty container from the lemonade stand.
The Money Came Back
Police arrested Lighty without incident and said they recovered both the container and the boys’ money.
Officers also found a stolen credit card that police said was unrelated to the lemonade stand, according to Patch.
Police said Lighty also had an active warrant out of Garfield.
He was charged with theft and taking or receiving a credit card without the owner’s consent before being taken to the Bergen County Jail.
The boys, meanwhile, got their $50 back.
And apparently they weren’t going to let an adult allegedly stealing their lemonade money ruin the rest of the day.
Back To Business
Tara Rotelli, the mother of one of the boys, told CBS New York that the kids still had supplies left and were ready to keep going.
So later that same afternoon, the lemonade stand reopened.
The story’s ending went over considerably better online than the alleged theft did.
“Way to go boy’s!! What a loser!!” one viewer wrote under CBS New York’s YouTube report.
“Just when you think the bar can’t possibly go any lower. Cmon man,” another wrote.
One commenter focused on what happened after the arrest: “aawww that’s a nice story in the end. ❤❤❤ Well done PD!”
For four kids who temporarily lost the proceeds from an afternoon lemonade stand, things worked out about as well as they could have.
Their money came back.
Their stand reopened.
And the man police say took it apparently made his getaway all the way to a nearby park bench.