Feb. 1—A Michigan man is being held in Berks County Prison following his extradition to Pennsylvania on felony retail theft and conspiracy charges.

Donald L. Lemon, 26, of Flint is also wanted in Virginia, among several other states, on charges he stole thousands of dollars of tools and equipment from Lowe’s stores in a ruse that tricked cashiers into believing he had paid for the merchandise with a cash card, officials said.

Lemon was arraigned Jan. 26 in Reading Central Court following extradition from Kentucky, where he was in custody, officials with the Berks County district attorney’s office said. Details of how he was taken into custody in Kentucky were unavailable.

Lemon was committed to the Berks jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

How long he remains there depends on when authorities from Virginia transport him to that state to be booked on a grand larceny charge by investigators in Chesterfield County, officials said. The victim in that case is also a Lowe’s, they said.

On Wednesday before Berks Judge Thomas G. Parisi, Lemon waived his right to an extradition hearing, clearing the way for Virginia law enforcement to transport him to their state. Parisi denied a request from Lemon’s public defender to lower his bail.

The Berks charges, including retail theft, receiving stolen property, theft by deception and conspiracy, were filed Nov. 3, 2022, by Tilden Township police.

Officer Frank Cataldi, who investigated that case, said Lemon and an accomplice, Lavish Boxley, 26, also of Michigan, used a ruse that was being successfully deployed at a number of Lowe’s stores throughout the country a couple of years ago.

Perpetrators, often working in groups, would take merchandise to a checkout station, insert a cash card into the card reader as if they were paying with the card, then tell the cashier they needed to hit the cash button so the funds would transfer over.

The funds did not transfer, however, because the cash button activation caused the register to override the card reader.

Eventually Lowe’s caught on to that type of scam and eliminated that kind of theft, Cataldi said.

Cataldi provided the following account of the theft at the Lowe’s store off Route 61:

On July 23, 2022, security camera footage showed Boxley entering the store about 5 p.m. and selecting water faucets, laundry detergent pods, an electrical switch and Lowe’s Protection Plans, with a combined retail value of nearly $2,000.

He went to the register and, after appearing to use a cash card to pay for the merchandise, left the store and loaded the items into a black sedan.

Around the same time, Lemon is seen entering the store and selecting two rolls of copper wire and three water faucets with a combined retail value of $2,031.

He went to the checkout and told the cashier that he was paying with a cash card. After successfully using the cash-card ruse, he went to the parking lot and loading the items into the same sedan that Boxley had entered a short time earlier.

The two suspects left the lot that car.

Boxley, who remains at large, is also accused of using the ruse to steal merchandise from the Lowe’s store in October 2022.

In early January of this year, Berks officials declared Lemon and Boxley fugitives after attempts to locate them were unsuccessful.