Palm Desert Jewelry Store Robbery Linked To 3 LA Men: Sheriff's Dept.

PALM DESERT, CA — A multi-agency investigation into an Oct. 5 smash-and-grab robbery at a Palm Desert jewelry store resulted in the arrests of three Los Angeles County residents this week, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday.

Reymundo Garcia, 21, and Mason Barron, 21, both of Los Angeles, along with 19-year-old Byron Bradford Lee of Compton, were taken into custody Wednesday and booked into John Benoit Detention Center in Indio, according to the sheriff's department. Booking charges for Lee includerobbery, burglary, conspiracy and organized retail theft; jail records for the other two men were unavailable.

The arrests are connected to the late-afternoon heist at Brandon Boswell Diamonds in the 73000 block of El Paseo. The smash-and-grab resulted in a "significant loss of high-value merchandise," according to the sheriff's department, and caused extensive damage to the store as seen in video footage from KESQ.

The three men were collared after members of the Palm Desert Sheriff's Station, assisted by the Los Angeles Retail Crime Task Force, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Office of Correctional Safety Fugitive Team, served four residential search warrants within the County of Los Angeles, the sheriff's department reported.

Though jail records were unavailable for Garcia and Barron, the records show Lee was being held in lieu of $240,000 bail.

The sheriff's department did not provide further details on what led them to the three men.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Investigator Grasso of the Palm Desert Sheriff's Station at 760-836-1600.