Alleged Rolex thief walks into Peter Franklin Jewelers; now he's got a warrant

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---Flash a Rolex watch and you’ve got status. At least in the material sense, Rolex, along with Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermes and others, caters to the nouveau riche dreams embedded in our modern culture.

With that in mind, who knows what was going through the mind of Kevin Lee Evanoff who is accused of purchasing three Rolex watches from Peter Franklin Jewelers on Dupont Road with a fake credit card.

The credit card embossed with Evanoff’s name was a physical clone of a credit card held by the Springfield Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, court documents report.

Does eeryone want a Rolex? A Butler man purchased three of them with a fake credit card, but an employee thought the transaction was suspicious.

In May, a TD Bank representative filed a police report with the Fort Wayne Police Department alleging that Evanoff fraudulently purchased the three Rolex watches using a fake museum card. Cost of watches was $58,042.15.

At the time of the purchase on Dec. 14, 2024, a Peter Franklin employee found the transaction suspicious and when Evanoff, 44, arrived to pick up the watches after a six- day hold, he followed Evanoff to his residence. Online court documents indicate Evanoff lives on Main Street in Butler.

At that time, the employee took photos of Evanoff’s vehicle and license plate, court documents said.

Enjoy this article about a watch stolen off a tourist sitting on a bench in Oxford, UK:

https://www.theprobablecause.com/post/thieves-rob-a-man-of-his-128k-mille-watch-right-in-the-heart-of-oxford

The alert jewelry store employee also turned over video footage of Evanoff buying the watches. FWPD detective James Wenglikowski matched the video image to Evanoff’s photo on his driver’s license, court documents said. 

Although the fraudulent purchase was made in December, it wasn’t until May 14 that the FWPD received the police report.

Wenglikowski turned over the investigation to FWPD Detective Joseph Lyon, an expert on stolen merchandise, who found the watches had been sold to CMW International LLC aka Bob’s Watches in California.

On Thursday, a warrant for Evanoff’s arrest was issued out of Allen Superior Court. He is charged with Level 5 fraud on an institution.