A Pennsylvania man’s longtime “thievery” has been punished with a substantial stint in prison, according to Keystone State authorities.

Matthew Patrick Gay, 34, was recently convicted on multiple offenses related to a string of diamond thefts that occurred at a Walmart Supercenter near Athens Township — a small community along the New York State border — throughout 2022, according to a press release issued by the Bradford County District Attorney’s Office.

In sum, the defendant stole seven diamond rings — valued at $7,362.50 — from the same store on several separate occasions.

This was not, however, the first time Gay was convicted.

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After his arrest in October 2022, the defendant was found guilty and slated to be sentenced in August 2024, according to the prosecutor’s office. But Gay did not attend his sentencing hearing; instead, he fled the county, and a warrant was eventually issued for his arrest.

“While on the run, Gay committed similar offenses in Berks County,” the press release says — a county located some 130 miles south — leading to a sentence of five to 24 months behind bars, plus two years of probation.

In April 2025, the defendant made his way back to Bradford County, where he then faced charges of retail theft and default in required appearance — the second charge due to skipping his original sentencing date. Both of those charges are considered felonies in the third degree.

A Kansas man was arrested this week for allegedly posing as an employee for Walmart — telling a female shopper he was an “asset protection officer” and that she needed to come with him to the back of the store — where he attacked and raped her, cops say.

Justin Metz, 42, singled out the woman at a Walmart in Atchison on U.S. Route 73 earlier this month and kidnapped her under the guise of a security guard, according to the local Hays Post news website and Fox affiliates KCTV and WDAF.

Metz allegedly approached the 32-year-old shopper as she was leaving the store and told her he was an “asset protection officer” who needed to speak with her, the Atchison Police Department reports.

A teenager from North Carolina who was on the run after allegedly shooting and killing a woman who was waiting in line at a bank inside of a local Walmart was busted this week trying to board a Greyhound bus in Chicago, according to authorities.

Ezekiel Burden, 17, was caught in the Windy City on Tuesday thanks to joint efforts by the Lumberton Police Department, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, United States Marshal Service and Chicago Police Department who all partnered in the arrest and investigation.

The Florida mother of a 9-year-old boy who died years after hitting his head on a metal cart in Walmart is suing the megastore for allegedly creating a dangerous and unsafe condition that led to the boy’s death.

Tamika Springer is seeking damages beyond $30,000 in the death of her son, Saiy-Yah Allen, according to the complaint.

During testimony in the trial on Tuesday, Saiy-Yah’s sister spoke about her brother’s seizures in the years after the incident at a Fort Lauderdale location on Nov. 25, 2020, when the then-7-year-old boy walked into a metal stock cart and struck his head in a walkway.

“He would shake a lot and he would look in a different direction, and then he would shake and make noise, too,” Miharah Allen said. “Every time he ate, he would throw up, he would throw the food up or use the bathroom on himself.”

The testimony came as Walmart attorneys questioned whether his injury then led to his seizures and death on May 7, 2023, local NBC affiliate WTVJ reported.

“F–k that! Just kill me now!” a murder suspect told cops as they had him handcuffed on the floor of a Walmart this summer.

Cops in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said that the defendant Jamil Lewis, had been caught attempting to shoplift a holster from the store on July 29, according to The Albuquerque Journal. He allegedly slipped a gun into it, and then put it into his waistband. Weeks earlier on June 8, Lewis, had shot and killed Gerald Ibuado, 44, and injured the man’s brother, police said.

Body camera video obtained by Law&Crime shows police rushing over to Lewis at the superstore on July 29 and giving chase as he — wearing a red “Chucky”-themed sweatshirt and shorts — ran off.

 

“Hey, stop running!” said the officer. “I’m going to shoot you!”

Lewis eventually stopped and lay prone. The ensuing arrest is somewhat chaotic, as he tenses up and yells as three officers manhandle him into handcuffs. He questions why they are detaining him and complains about them searching him in the store, preferring it outside.

“Why?” an officer asked rhetorically. “So you can run?”

More Law&Crime Coverage: ‘I took a lot of s—‘: Woman arrested after shoplifting more than $1K from Walmart as part of ‘game,’ deputies say

“I’m not going to run,” he said. “You guys already got me in handcuffs.”

That is all timed at about 1:30 p.m. The tone changed less than an hour later. Footage shows a decidedly calmer Lewis sitting in the back of a police vehicle, handcuffed and smoking with police help.

 

Lewis lamented his situation.

“It’s going to affect my son,” he said in the video. “It’s going to affect my mom.”

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