Florida is not known for its criminal brilliance. Just in the last past month, the Sunshine State has seen a meth addict accidentally burn down the state's oldest tree, a drunk driver rear-end another car while wearing a butt plug, and a man arrested for masturbating while making monkey sounds on the beach.
Despite all this illegal insanity, we're naming Miami's own Miguel Angel Esquilin as Florida's dumbest criminal.
Keep reading to see how he trumps even the guy who brought a crack pipe to his trial for crack possession.
Esquilin, a short man with a shaved head and a Miami-Dade arrest record at least 16 files high, sauntered into ABC Fine Wine & Spirits on the evening of Tuesday, February 7, fresh off his latest prison stint for a Jan. 3 petty theft conviction.
He dropped his backpack near the counter and went straight for the good stuff in the back. A few minutes later, Esquilin bent over to retrieve his bag and leave. According to a police report, that's when the store clerk Stewart Kofman caught sight of a bottle of Jack Daniels stuffed inside Esquilin's shirt.
When Kofman asked for the bottle, Esquilin began yelling angrily. And when Kofman and store manager Yaminah Sutton tried to block the would-be-robber's exit, Esquilin exploded, allegedly shoving the clerk through a store display.
That's when his brilliant plan began unraveling. As he tussled with Kofman, Esquilin dropped the bottle of booze and his backpack full of clothes. Even still, Esquilin's attempted five-finger-discount might have gone unreported had he not dropped something else, too: His jailhouse booking photo, complete with his name and jail number on it.
Esquilin may be Florida's dumbest criminal, but he has competition in the category of overall incompetence. This year's early favorite? The North Miami Beach Police. They still haven't caught him.
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