Inset: Lynda Mae Crouse (BCSO). Background: The Gulfstream Park Casino (Google Maps).
A 32-year-old Florida woman is accused of taking a rideshare to the home of a man she had just met at a casino, where she allegedly drugged him and then stole a Rolex valued at nearly $100,000.
Lynda Mae Crouse was charged with one count of second-degree grand theft in connection with the Rolex, though authorities allege that she has committed the same crime under similar circumstances several times before, court documents state.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the victim met Crouse around midnight on April 12 at the Carousel Club inside Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, where they exchanged Instagram accounts before parting ways about 20 minutes later.
Around 1:20 a.m., the victim allegedly sent an Uber to Crouse's residence to pick her up and bring her to his home.
The two drank alcohol, but the victim told investigators he had not consumed enough to "black out" or "pass out." At one point, he left Crouse alone in the living room while he went to his bedroom to change clothes.
That was when he began feeling strange, he later said.
"He began to feel 'funny' and he became extremely tired and he heard a clapping sound coming from the living room area and when he returned to the living room the defendant appeared to be acting different and advised she was going to leave and go home," the affidavit states. "The victim was becoming increasingly tired and confused and fell asleep within minutes of the defendant leaving his residence."
When he awoke several hours later, the victim said, the strange sensation remained. He believed he had been drugged and immediately went to the Rolex box he had left in the living room to find the timepiece gone. He provided investigators with a signed appraisal valuing his watch at $98,400.
The victim told investigators he believed the "clapping" sound he heard before Crouse left was the lid of the Rolex box closing. The missing watch was a gold 40 mm Rolex Presidential with diamonds covering the entire bezel.
While he did not seek medical treatment to determine whether he had been drugged, the victim provided a sworn statement saying he still had not fully recovered from the unexplained feeling more than a day later.
He later identified Crouse from a six-person photo lineup, the affidavit states. It was not immediately clear whether she had been arrested.
Investigators also found what they described as four active Dade County cases involving a similar pattern. According to the affidavit, those cases involved men who allegedly met the woman at bars or nightclubs while wearing expensive watches, accompanied her to a home or hotel and later woke up feeling as if they had been drugged, only to find their watches missing.
One of those investigations involved a victim whose toxicology screen detected zolpidem, a prescription sleep aid known to cause sedation, confusion and memory impairment, particularly when combined with alcohol, according to the affidavit.
Investigators said those effects were similar to what the Hallandale Beach victim described.
"The defendant appears to have intentionally given the victim a similar substance as the one found in the City of Miami's investigation, and when the victim woke up, the defendant and his watch were gone," police wrote. "The defendant knowingly and intentionally obtained the victim's property and did so with the intent to permanently deprive the victim of his right to his property and to appropriate it for the defendant's own use."
The affidavit references prior investigations by Aventura police, Miami Beach police and the city of Miami as part of the alleged pattern.