Why did the Uber customer from Plantation let the Uber driver into his house?
According to a report by Miami TV station Local 10, because she told him she needed to use the bathroom after their drive from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and, the robbery victim said, “I’m a nice guy and I didn’t think there was any harm.”
Until he woke up hours later to find out he’d been ripped off, he told police. He figured he’d been drugged by the water his driver offered him. Police picked up Hialeah’s Brandi Begerow Tuesday on a charge of armed burglary and grand theft of a firearm. She remains in Broward County Jail.
Uber told The Herald its drivers undergo a complete criminal history screening that includes sex-offender registries and national terrorist watch lists. In Miami-Dade or Broward, having any kind of felony conviction in the last seven years or being within six months of finishing a prison term disqualifies an applicant.
Begerow’s convictions date to 2002-2003: cocaine possession and a misdemeanor marijuana rap in 2002, and cocaine possession and possession with intent to distribute in 2003. She wasn’t charged after being arrested for second-degree grand theft in 2012.
As for what happened that Jan. 30 morning, the victim, who asked Channel 10 not to be identified, remembers less than his surveillance camera sees — Begerow leaving his home two hours later.
The victim told Channel 10 that Begerow took not only a handgun and a small safe, but his tax returns from 2012-2015 — suggesting identity theft.
At a recent press conference announcing federal charges against more than 100 suspected people involved in schemes to steal personal information from tens of thousands of victims, U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer called South Florida the “epicenter of identity theft.’’
He noted how identity thieves are now trying to rob other identity thieves’ houses for personal identification information, similar to what happens when drug dealers hit other drug dealers’ stashes to steal drugs.
David J. Neal: 305-376-3559, @DavidJNeal
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
