Excelsior Man Charged with Stealing Cash from Woman's Purse

An Excelsior man has been charged with theft after police say he grabbed his girlfriend’s purse and stole an envelope full of cash from it.

Reginald Blackwell, 34, is charged with felony theft, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He is also charged with domestic assault, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Blackwell remains in the Hennepin County Jail on a $50,000 bond.

According to the criminal complaint, compiled by South Lake Minnetonka Police Sgt. Stephen Neurrurer, police were called to an apartment in the 700 block of Water Street in Excelsior on Feb. 18 on a report of a domestic assault.

When officers arrived, they found Blackwell and a woman standing outside the building, with Blackwell trying to stuff “a bunch of items” into the woman’s purse, according to the complaint.

The woman told police that she and her son were visiting Blackwell when she and Blackwell began to argue. When she started to leave, Blackwell grabbed her arm, and the two struggled, according to the complaint.

The woman fell and hurt her knee during the struggle, and the strap on her purse broke, the complaint says. While the woman was lying on the ground, Blackwell grabbed her purse and went back inside; she sent her son inside to retrieve the purse, but when he brought it back, she noticed that a bank envelope containing cash was missing, according to the complaint.

The woman’s son said that when he went inside to get the purse, he saw Blackwell standing near the couch, stuffing an envelope into its cushions. Police recovered a white bank envelope from behind a couch cushion, the complaint says.