Randall Puit

BUTLER TWP — Magnets attracted the attention of township police investigating a recent shoplifting incident.

Police suspect an alleged shoplifter used the devices in his attempt last week to steal a $500 camera at Kohl's department store at the Butler Crossing shopping plaza on New Castle Road.

The would-be thief managed to run off — albeit empty-handed — but officers caught him a short time later in a bathroom at a nearby convenience store.

“We don't see it very often,” police Lt. Matthew Pearson said Thursday of the magnetic-assisted shoplifting tactic, “but it's not the first time we've seen it.”

Randall L. Puit Jr., 36, of Osceola Mills in Clearfield County, is charged in the case with retail theft and possessing instruments of crime, both first-degree misdemeanors. Police said he has at least one prior shoplifting conviction in Pennsylvania.

He is free on $3,000 bail with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Feb. 20. Online court records did not indicate if he has an attorney and he could not be reached for comment.

Police said they were called to Kohl's around 1:45 p.m. for a shoplifting in progress. Investigators later learned the suspect used magnets to unlock the store's “spider wrap” theft-protection device on a Canon digital camera.

The suspect placed the camera in a shopping cart, police said, and pushed the cart to the front of the store. An employee approached the suspect, who by then had allegedly taken the camera out of the cart and gone outside without paying for it.

The man allegedly handed over the camera, but ran instead of returning to the store with the employee. He didn't get far.

A search of the area turned up Puit close by in a bathroom stall at the Sheetz on New Castle Road, according to authorities. He was taken back to the store and identified by the employee as the alleged shoplifter.

Police said when they searched Puit, they found him carrying two “strong magnets,” which authorities suspect “would have been used to defeat the 'spider wrap' security mechanism that was on (the) camera.”

Pearson declined to discuss how the magnets are used by shoplifters, in the hope of preventing copycat crimes.