Staff report
WALDO, Fla. – Authorities have charged 19-year-old Justin Lavelle Bolton Jr. of Waldo with the theft of firearms and credit cards from vehicles during two separate incidents in November 2025 and January 2026.
On January 26, law enforcement officials from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call from victims in Waldo who reported their vehicles had been targeted. Stolen items included a purse, a credit card, and several firearms. The stolen credit card was later used in multiple unauthorized CashApp and Amazon transactions.
In a breakthrough in the investigation, detectives in June received subpoenaed information from CashApp, initially requested in February. This revealed that the CashApp account linked to the fraudulent transactions belonged to Justin Bolton. On January 26, his account showed five failed attempts to transfer funds from the victim’s credit card, as well as another unsuccessful attempt to send money to a different account.
Further investigation into local burglary reports uncovered an incident from November 2025 where another victim reported her wallet missing. She had a tracker inside it that led detectives to an address in Waldo, which turned out to be Bolton’s residence, thus connecting him to that crime as well.
On July 20, the detective went to Bolton’s address in Waldo, but he learned that Bolton was at a residence in Hawthorne, and Bolton was subsequently arrested at that residence.
Bolton has been charged with two counts of armed burglary of a vehicle, four counts of grand theft of a firearm, and two counts of attempted theft of a debit/credit card (one each for the November and January burglaries). He has no criminal convictions, and Judge Susan Miller-Jones set bail at $255,000.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.