Lake Worth woman charged with stealing credit, debit cards

A Lake Worth woman was arrested Wednesday after she was accused of stealing both a credit and a debit card from an apartment and using them to pay for gas, among other items.

Latasha Harp, 42, is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail in lieu of $140,000 bail, according to jail records. She is facing charges of burglary, petit theft, fraudulent use of a credit card and criminal use of personal identification.

Palm Beach County sheriff’s investigators began working the case July 25 when Ashraf Fared, 28, of Lake Worth called to report his apartment had been burglarized. Fared said he and his wife were moving from their apartment in the 600 block of North H Street, but they still had some property inside.

Fared said that when his wife returned to the apartment on July 25, she noticed that a Discover card and a debit card had been stolen from a drawer. Further, when they called to cancel the cards, they learned that four purchases had been posted to the Discover card — two purchases at a Publix Super Market, one at a Subway restaurant and one for gasoline.

Through video surveillance, investigators identified Harp. Further, Harp admitted to being the person who went into the apartment, after she said she found the door standing open, according to the arrest report. She said she thought the apartment was vacant.

Harp told investigators she put $50 worth of gas into an unknown man’s car in exchange for $5 cash. She also said she bought a phone at Publix. She denied taking the debit card.