Pair Arrested in Boca Raton For Theft of Grandmother’s Car

Nicolas Joseph Locigno, 34, and Stephanie Sonja Michaela Meusel, 36. (Photos: Palm Beach County Jail)

A Boca Raton man and a Deerfield Beach woman were arrested after investigators say they were found with a car that had allegedly been stolen from the woman’s grandmother, according to a report from the Boca Raton Police Department.

Nicolas Joseph Locigno, 34, and Stephanie Sonja Michaela Meusel, 36, each face charges of grand theft auto, possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia, police said. Locigno was additionally charged with driving with a revoked license as a habitual traffic offender. The arrests took place Sept. 10 in the parking lot of the Valero gas station on the 1200 block of W. Palmetto Park Road, according to an arrest affidavit.

Investigators with the South Florida Criminal Apprehension Team, working with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Burglary Apprehension Team, had been searching for a silver 2013 Hyundai that authorities say was taken during a strong-arm robbery two days earlier. The affidavit identifies the car’s owner as a Deerfield Beach woman, whom investigators say is Meusel’s grandmother. Meusel had been named the primary suspect in the theft, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit states that surveillance agents tracked the vehicle to an apartment in Deerfield Beach, where they allegedly observed Locigno and Meusel leave the unit, which belonged to Locigno’s mother, before he got into the driver’s seat and Meusel into the passenger seat. Agents then followed the car to Boca Raton, where they conducted a stop and took the pair into custody without incident, police said.

A search of the vehicle turned up two glass pipes in the center console that field-tested positive for cocaine residue, along with a small plastic bag containing an estimated tenth of a gram of suspected cocaine residue on the front passenger seat, according to the affidavit.

Both Locigno and Meusel were booked into the Palm Beach County Jail. Meusel remained lodged there Tuesday in lieu of $5,000 combined bail on four separate charges, and Locigno remained in custody in lieu of $28,000 combined bail on six separate charges.