Thief Returns $4,000 Cognac Bottle; Restaurant Won’t Press Charges

An alleged thief has returned a bottle of cognac valued at $4,000 to a restaurant in San Jose, California, and has apologized.

Damian Trujillo of NBC Bay Area reported that the restaurant would not be pressing charges against the woman, who was identified on a surveillance video.

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The owner of Grand View restaurant in San Jose tells me the alleged thief has been identified. She took a $4k bottle of Louie XIII from behind the bar. The family returned the bottle and “apologized profusely.” 1/2 pic.twitter.com/AmxEHN8Zfo

— Damian Trujillo (@newsdamian) March 15, 2022

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“With all the bad things happening around the world. From COVID to Ukraine, I decided to give her a second chance and not press charges. She’s a mother of 6 who says she’s very sorry.”

But the family is not welcomed in the restaurant any more. pic.twitter.com/7ahqnX6g2L

— Damian Trujillo (@newsdamian) March 15, 2022

The San Jose Mercury News reported:

Louis XIII is back where he belongs, at the luxe Grandview restaurant atop San Jose’s Mount Hamilton.

 

…

“She decided to come forward,” co-owner Maurice Carrubba said Tuesday. “And with everything going on in the world — we’ve got war, we’ve got Covid, with everything everyone’s been going through — given that she’s a mother of six who made a bad decision, we decided to give her a second chance.”

He added: “People make mistakes. I got my bottle back.”

And yes, he said, it’s still sealed.

In a video, Carruba further described the brazen theft of the cognac, and explained his decision not to press charges:

The restaurant used the surveillance video, combined with reservation information, to identify the culprit. A family member was the one who turned in the missing bottle, rather than the woman who actually stole it. Carruba said the restaurant chose to handle the theft privately rather than press serious charges of grand theft. “We do believe in second chances.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.