Zanzibar Fair Trade co-owner Josh Varner said he was unsurprised upon learning that an alleged thief, accused of pilfering about $100,000 of rare antiques from his Land Park business, failed to appear in court this month after being released from jail.
That’s because the 50-year-old man accused in the Oct. 1 theft, Robert Price, has done this many times before, said Varner — and prosecutors. Price racked up more than 20 felony convictions throughout two decades in Sacramento, several of which related to burglarizing businesses, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
“It was a devastating violation that I am still emotionally recovering from,” Varner added.
After being released from state prison in April 2023, Price picked up more criminal charges last year, including allegations he smashed Zanzibar Fair Trade’s glass windows on Broadway before burglarizing it.
District Attorney Thien Ho held up Zanzibar Fair Trade’s theft Tuesday to explain the toll heaped onto small businesses in the wake of crimes. The comments came during Ho’s announcement of a dedicated unit prosecuting organized retail theft.
Price now faces five counts of forging or stealing a lottery ticket in Iowa, court records show, in addition to his Sacramento cases.
A criminal complaint shows Price is accused of using a crowbar to open a business on Christmas Day and taking the lottery tickets, according to The Messenger, a newspaper covering Webster County in Iowa. He and an accomplice then allegedly cashed 17 winning lottery tickets for prizes ranging from $5 to $25, The Messenger reported.
He and the accomplice, a woman, were arrested on New Year’s Eve, suspected in a string of thefts from convenience stores and gas stations over the preceding week, according to a social media post by the Sac City Police Department in Iowa.
Prosecutors filed charges against Price in the Zanzibar incident on Monday, and Ho said authorities are seeking to extradite him. Shelly Orio, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, said she could not respond Tuesday regarding the charges Price will face.
‘It would be insanity’
In January 2022, the District Attorney’s Office under then-DA Anne Marie Schubert, pleaded with the Board of Parole Hearings to refrain from releasing Price. By that time, he had accumulated 22 felony convictions and had been sentenced to prison 20 twenty times, Deputy District Attorney Andrea Morris wrote in a letter.
Price and his nephew Scott Price “wreaked havoc” on Sacramento businesses from December 2019 until January 2020, a period during which prosecutors said he targeted small markets and liquor stores for lottery tickets.
Robert Price broke into at least six closed businesses by either using a crowbar to pry open doors or breaking glass, prosecutors said. Morris wrote that once Robert rammed into an establishment’s front door using a stolen vehicle.
He then swiped hundreds of lottery tickets and cashed them at other locations, Morris added.
“The damage to at least six businesses was extensive,” Morris wrote.
Robert Price committed these offenses while on parole for two separate instances of burglary dated 2016, Morris wrote.
“He was released early only to engage in the exact same behavior,” Morris wrote. “It would be insanity to think there would be a different outcome if Inmate Price were released early.”
Price was sentenced in 2021 to serve eight years and eight months for various burglary-related charges, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terri Hardy wrote in an email.
Price was released from prison in April 2023, according to CDCR, with credit for time served while awaiting trial. He was denied release once in 2022 but was deemed a nonviolent offender and allowed to leave prison in April 2023 on post-release community supervision, state corrections officials said.
Prosecutors in the 2022 letter disagreed that Price should be classified a nonviolent offender. Morse pointed out that Price in 2006 was convicted of felony assault on a law enforcement officer.
“It is bad enough that Inmate Price is a career criminal who constantly takes advantage of citizens in our community, but the fact that he has the capacity for extreme violence takes him to a different level,” Morse wrote.
‘It feels humiliating’
Sacramento police connected Price to three different burglary cases in June 2023, just two months after his prison release and while he was on post-release community supervision.
He was apprehended in October after Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies found antiquities belonging to Zanzibar Fair Trade on him while arresting Price for an unrelated matter, according to The Sacramento Bee’s previous reporting.
It’s unclear what sheriff’s deputies accused Price of doing. Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, did not respond to requests for comment. Court records show Price was arraigned in October in a felony case.
Price was released from the Sacramento County Main Jail after posting bail before he was arrested in Iowa.
He was scheduled to appear Jan. 16 in court in Sacramento, but failed to appear, court records show. A bench warrant was issued, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.
Price has five warrants out of Sacramento County, said Officer Cody Tapley, a spokesman for the Sacramento Police Department.
Despite Price facing charges in Sacramento, Varner said there is no recovery for the “violation” he felt upon someone entering the business without consent.
Prior to Price’s alleged involvement, the establishment faced another theft at the store, Varner added. Tapley said investigative leads have dried up in the first theft case.
It was the years of labor and effort poured into the businesses’ meticulous selections that were stolen, he said. Only about 10% of the goods have been returned following the October theft.
“It feels disgusting,” Varner said. “It feels humiliating.”
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