BROWNHELM TWP. — The thief who crashed his car through AdultMart here early Wednesday knew exactly what he wanted: He picked up a $300 sex toy, discarded it for a smaller, less expensive model and then drove off — all of which was captured quite clearly on security video.

Holmes

“Desperate people do desperate things,” said Tracy Holmes, the store’s manager. “At 6 o’clock in the morning when I got here, we had no doors at all.”

However, AdultMart’s security system with multiple cameras captured the thief’s almost every move.

It appears the thief was driving a burgundy or purple Dodge Neon when he crashed through the rear doors, jumped out of his car without putting it in park, grabbed the sex toy and ran over to his still-moving car before driving it through the front doors of the business, Holmes said.

As seen in the video, the paint on the car’s roof is marred, and the license plate is visible on his front dashboard in some of the footage.

Holmes said the thief might have been scared off by the loud alarm, but she also speculated that the man only wanted that particular item as he isn’t seen on the footage looking at anything else. She also said he may have visited the store before because “he knew exactly where he was running.’’

Sheriff’s deputies arrived too late to catch the suspect at the scene, but Capt. John Reiber said deputies will try to crack the case with video enhancement in order to bring up a license plate number. Anyone with information about the suspect can call the detective bureau at (440) 329-3742.

Reiber said the store alarm alerted deputies of the 5:43 a.m. break-in at the business, which is on Cooper Foster Park Road near the Baumhart Road interchange on state Route 2.

The thief caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage, according to a regional supervisor for AdultMart who was supervising temporary repairs. He said the thief rammed his car through six doors and ran over $20,000 of security devices — all for a $150 sex toy.

“Maybe he was embarrassed,” said the regional supervisor, who identified himself only as Mike. “What a perverted idiot.”

Meanwhile, the 5,500-square-foot store was open and doing brisk business Wednesday afternoon despite the repair crews that were on scene. It is part of a Cleveland-based chain of AdultMarts scattered throughout the area and opened about two years ago.

Another AdultMart employee, Marie Woodruff, was still shaking her head in amazement over all the damage.

“If somebody wants something bad enough, they’re going to go to whatever extremes they have to in order to get it,” she said.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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