Police Seeking Person Of Interest In Ava Benefit Theft

Police Seeking Person Of Interest In Ava Benefit Theft
Police Seeking

OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) is seeking the public’s help in identifying a “person of interest” wanted for questioning in regards to a silent auction item taken from a downtown bar during a fundraiser for Baby Ava.

Last Thursday, the OCPD responded to the Pour House on Wicomico Street to investigate a theft that had allegedly occurred during a fundraiser on Jan. 28 for Ava DelRicco, a toddler critically injured in an accident on Coastal Highway at 142nd Street on Dec. 16 when the vehicle in which she was riding was rear-ended at a high rate of speed by a driver allegedly impaired by PCP. During the benefit, attended by approximately 200 people, a silent auction was planned.

However, Pour House management told OCPD at the time one of the silent auction items, a large, canvas red and maroon Molson Beer umbrella measuring six feet tall with a wooden pole, was stolen during the event. The bar’s video surveillance system captured the image of a person of interest, described as a white male, wearing a dark T-shirt and white baseball cap, carrying the umbrella out of the establishment.

On Tuesday, however, a citizen returned the missing beach umbrella still in its original packaging to the OCPD after it was found abandoned near the Pour House.

Currently, OCPD officials do not consider the citizen who returned the item to be a suspect. However, the OCPD did receive a still picture of an individual the department is only calling an “unknown male person of interest” and not a suspect.

In addition, OCPD detectives are still attempting to identify the person of interest captured by the bar’s video surveillance system. Ocean City Police are asking anyone with information about the identity of the suspect or the theft to contact OCPD Pfc. John Spicer at 410-520-5295. Information can be provided anonymously.

To view the surveillance video of the theft, click here:

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