- April 15, 2024
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Former Palm Coast City Councilman Victor Barbosa is no longer barred from the Palm Coast Walmart: The store on March 2 canceled a trespass order that had been issued against him for suspected shoplifting, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.
"Guess where I'm at. Can anybody take a guess?" Barbosa said in a March 2 Facebook Live video shot inside Walmart. "Like I said: misunderstanding. But everybody wanted to jump on the news, talk all this c--- about me."
He added in a second video, holding up a still-packaged American flag as he walked out of the store, "You know what? First thing I went and bought from Walmart. Right there. It's going on my new house. Right there — America, still the best country in the world. But you idiots gotta learn: innocent till proven guilty. Sad. Because of stupid things like this, and other crazy people, you're going to miss out on a good councilman that used to do things for you, used to get the job done."
He praised Walmart's handling of his request to have the trespass order voided.
"... You idiots gotta learn: Innocent till proven guilty. Sad. Because of stupid things like this, and other crazy people, you're going to miss out on a good councilman that used to do things for you, used to get the job done."
— VICTOR BARBOSA, in a Facebook Live video
"They took care of me, answered the phone within a minute — still a good company. I thank everybody at Walmart, the corporate office, store manager — thank you very much. God bless you all."
The store had initially requested the trespass order on Feb. 27 after an asset protection officer said she'd been watching the store's CCTV camera feed and had seen Barbosa skip scanning one clothing item. She told the Sheriff's Office that when the store remotely halted the transaction, forcing Barbosa to shift to another register and start over, he skipped the same item again.
Barbosa had called the incident a misunderstanding.
"I scanned the stuff. I'm not a cashier," he said. "I spent $300; I was not going to purposefully not pay, I think it was, $16. Now, thinking, I wish I had asked her to scan it in front of me to see if the bar code was damaged."
Barbosa had said on Feb. 28 that he'd contacted the store's corporate office to have the trespass order voided. The next day, March 1, he resigned from the Palm Coast City Council.
The Palm Coast store's asset protection operations coach reached out to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office on March 2 and requested that the trespass order be canceled, and signed a voluntary witness citation to void it, according to a news release from the FCSO.
