MIAMI – Miami-Dade prosecutors dropped charges against a 24-year-old Bay Harbor Islands woman accused of stealing a purse from a South Miami yoga studio and going on a high-priced shopping spree.
Angelina Giambri told Local 10 News on Tuesday that she’s been vindicated and her attorney said she has solid proof that she wasn’t the woman seen on surveillance video using the victim’s credit card to buy expensive purses.
“I’m not surprised,” Giambri said. “I have no attachment to the crime.”
Local 10 News was with South Miami police when Giambri was arrested in August.
“This first thing I have is a bright light blinding me, then I have a gentleman feeling up on me all in between my thighs, my legs and one is restraining me and one is smoking a cigarette,” Giambri said. “How is that professional?”
Giambri had faced multiple felony charges in connection with the crime.
“She’s innocent with an ironclad alibi,” Sam Rabin, Giambri’s attorney, said. “They arrested the wrong person.”
Giambri said she was on a boat at the time and provided a photo time-stamped at 11:36 a.m., the same period she was accused of the theft. She also had restaurant receipts from that day.
“I proved I was innocent before going to jail,” she said. “(The officer’s) words were ‘I’ve been here since 8 a.m. and you are going to jail.’”
Police are defending their work.
“If she says ‘I’m totally in the clear,’ what do you say?” Local 10 News reporter Rosh Lowe asked South Miami police Sgt. Fernando Bosch.
“We’ll find out,” Bosch said.
Police said they had received a Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers tip that identified Giambri as the suspect.
“We didn’t get it wrong,” Bosch said. “We did our investigation and she was positively IDed by a witness who was face to face with her.”
Bosch added: “I saw that (surveillance) video. The times are close, but it could still be her. I’m continuing my investigation. I’m waiting for additional video.”
Rabin said Giambri’s charges stemmed from a “a veteran officer who rushed to judgement based upon one identification of a witness.”
Bosch pushed back.
“This is not bad policing at all,” he said, noting the case is “not over.”
“If it’s not her, at the end of the day I’m going to find out who committed the crime,” he said.
Rabin said police should continue to investigate.
“They should find the person who did this,” Rabin said.
Giambri said she wants to go on with her life and is very concerned about how South Miami police handled the investigation.