Full Notification

On Sunday, January 29, 2017, at approximately 6:30 pm, deputies from the Sonoma Police Department were dispatched to the Safeway store in Sonoma regarding a theft. The reporting party were loss prevention officers from another Safeway store in Marin County, who had followed two suspected thieves to Sonoma.

While in Sonoma, they observed the male suspect exit a car and enter the Safeway store with a dark backpack, while the female suspect remained in the driver’s seat of the car. Inside the store, they observed the male suspect place several bottles of alcohol inside the backpack, exit the store without paying for the items, get back into the awaiting car, and drive away. The loss prevention officers called dispatch and followed the suspects while updating dispatch with the suspect vehicle’s location.

Sonoma Police deputies located and later stopped the suspect vehicle on Napa Road on the east side of town. Upon contact, the deputy could see the backpack on the passenger side floorboard and the suspects admitted they were coming from Safeway. The deputy could smell a store odor of an alcoholic beverage from inside the vehicle and discovered one of the stolen bottles had broken inside the backpack and leaked all of the car and the suspect’s pants.

It was also determined the male suspect was on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) for a previous criminal conviction. The deputy searched the backpack and located 15 bottles of alcohol along with drug paraphernalia.

Inside the trunk, the deputies located 70 bottles of high-end alcohol, many still with the electronic sensors on them. According to the loss prevention officers, many bottles were stolen from other Safeway stores in the North Bay; Windsor, Petaluma, and Novato. Fifty-seven of the bottles could not be linked to a specific Safeway.

The items stolen from the Sonoma Safeway totaled over $1300. The total loss was nearly $6,000.

The male suspect was identified as Matthew Robert Moore, age 28, from Sacramento. He was booked into the Sonoma County jail for Violation of PRCS, burglary, possession of stolen property, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The female suspect was identified as Frankie D. Nicholls, age 24, from Sacramento. She was booked into the Sonoma County jail for burglary, possession of stolen property, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The Sonoma Police Department would like to commend the two loss prevention officers from Safeway, who were instrumental in solving this crime.

Refer to Sonoma Police CR# 17-0000142.

Prepared by Chief Bret Sackett, Sonoma Police Department