FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Detectives accused a 24-year-old woman of conspiring with three men to steal 12 cars from Hertz while she worked security earlier this year at the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport’s car rental center.
Savannah Harsha Phillips’s arraignment on 13 felony charges related to the dozen cars stolen from the Hertz parking garage at 11 p.m. on May 16 and at 12:05 a.m. on May 17 was on Wednesday morning before Broward County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Coleman.
Phillips, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and lives in Sunrise, “allowed” the drivers to “exit the Hertz parking garage without showing a driver’s license and pretending to scan the vehicles as they exited,” a BSO detective wrote in a report to apply for an arrest warrant.
A Hertz corporate security manager learned that a black Kia K 4that had been stolen at the FLL car rental center was involved in crimes in Texas, and a white Toyota Corolla that also was stolen at the FLL car rental center was involved in crimes in Virginia, according to the 17-page warrant for Phillips’s arrest.
The others were a second black Kia K4, three gray Kia K4s, a red Kia Kay 4, two blue Nissan Altimas, a red Hyundai Sonata, a maroon Nissan Sentra, and a black Nissan Altima, according to the detective’s affidavit.
Phillips “had access to all Hertz company vehicles, had knowledge that the keys would be in the vehicles and knew the slowest time of business to commit this crime,” the detective wrote.
Prosecutors filed the case against her, and deputies arrested her at her home in Sunrise on Aug. 26. Phillips was charged with first-degree organized fraud, five counts of second-degree grand theft, and seven counts of third-degree grand theft.
Broward Sheriff’s Office correctional deputies held her at the Paul Rein Detention Facility. A bond court judge ordered her to prove that the $62,000 bail was not from criminal proceeds. Records show her next hearing is at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 1.
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