- November 6, 2024
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The call came in as a robbery, but deputies quickly discovered that it wasn't.
On July 7, Wendy's night manager Dante Parker Wilson, 23, was working a day shift at the Wendy's on Commerce Boulevard, off State Road 100. He was assigned to make a bank drop at Wells Fargo, depositing $900 cash and exchanging $90 for change.
At 10:17 that morning, he called the Flagler County Sheriff's Office dispatch center and said he'd been robbed about 10 minutes earlier as he got out of his car outside the Wells Fargo.
He told a deputy who came to Wendy's to interview him that he'd gotten into a fight with a man who'd been sitting outside the bank, and that the man stole his bank bag.
When a detective followed up with Wilson, that story began to unravel, according to an arrest report.
The employees at the Wells Fargo told the detective they weren't aware of any fight taking place outside. An employee's car had been parked since 8:30 a.m. in the spot that Wilson had said he'd been parked in when he was robbed.
Wilson consented to having his car searched and to taking a lie detector test.
Before the test, he changed his story, saying he'd gone to the Bank of America in Bunnell for the $90 in change before heading to the Wells Fargo, where he again said he was robbed.
When the test was given, Wilson appeared deceptive on both the control questions and the regular test questions, according to the arrest report.
The detective confronted Wilson about the fact that he'd changed his story and told him that statements from the bank employees contradicted what Wilson had said.
Wilson then changed his story again, this time saying he'd been robbed at Bank of America and that there had not been a fight; the robber, he said, had snatched Wilson's bank bag from his car's map pocket and fled east on State Road 100.
The detective got video surveillance footage from the bank, which showed Wilson drive up, enter the bank, complete a transaction and leave without incident.
"The video at no time showed anyone approaching the defendant's car or running away from it toward East Moody Blvd.," the detective wrote in the arrest report.
Wilson was arrested Aug. 30 on charges of grand theft over $300, perjury, false report of a nonexistent crime and making a false 911 call. He remained at the county jail the afternoon of Sept. 1 on a combined $4,000 bond.
