6 People, All From Out Of Town And Mostly From Florida, Charged With Stealing Items At Lollapalooza
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Six people – all of them out of town and most from Florida – stood charged Thursday with stealing items at Lollapalooza.
Orlis Martinez Crus, 26, of Hialeah, Florida; Manuel Gonzalez, 26, of Orlando; Adrian Gutierrez-Marino, 31, of Miami; Luis Conreras-Castro, 55, of Miami; Juan Barrera-Ramirez, 36, of New York City; and Adriana Avellandea, 44, of Hawthorne, California, were all charged with varying numbers of counts of misdemeanor theft. Avellandea was also charged with criminal trespass.
This comes days after police sources told CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot that a crew of professionals from South Florida – where three of the four Florida defendants who have been charged live – came to Lollapalooza and pickpocketed phones from concertgoers.
Jessica Bauwens posted on TikTok about her phone being stolen at Lollapalooza.
"We were moshing, and once I noticed my phone was gone, obviously all my friends started checking," Bauwens said.
Chicago Police said they recovered more than 120 phones that were stolen during the four-day music festival at Grant Park this past weekend.
Bauwens said she was wearing a clear fanny pack and had her phone in her front pocket. The pickpockets still got it.
"The whole time, I had my hand over the fanny pack - kind of pressing it against my body to really make sure that nothing in the fanny pack was being stolen and my phone wasn't being stolen," she said.
Soon, Bauwens and four of her friends realized their phones were gone.
"I don't understand how people did it, but when you're in those crowds, you're on top of each other," she said.
The TikTok influencer, known for using her platform to combat online predators, posted about going to the Central (1st) District police station to find her phone.
"Me and my friend were kind of asking questions, like, 'How did you catch them?' and they were like: 'We saw it happen. We saw him stealing phones, putting them in his backpack, so we arrested him,'" Bauwens said. "I then asked him, 'Are you undercover?' and he said, 'Something like that.'"
Bauwens said the key to getting her iPhone back was having her Medical ID on the phone. That's how police called her mother and reunited Bauwens with her phone.
