A Jefferson City man has been charged in connection with multiple business burglaries last month.
Dakota Blackburn, 25, is charged with five counts of second-degree burglary.
Burglaries were reported June 27 at Las Palmas Taqueria and China Wok, both in the Capitol View Plaza on Ellis Boulevard, according to a Jefferson City Police Department probable cause statement.
Authorities believe Blackburn and an accomplice entered the businesses by breaking a window. More than $3,000 in cash was stolen from the cash registers at both stores.
Three more burglaries occurred June 29.
The first was at Mi Tolteca on Route C, where Blackburn and his accomplice are believed to have pried open and cut an exterior wall to get inside and remove a safe containing more than $4,000 in cash. They then allegedly went to Colton’s Steak House on Missouri Boulevard and broke out a window, taking $40 from the cash register, then used tools to cut a hole in an inner wall to break into the manager’s office. They used power tools to try to cut into the safe in the office but fled and left the tools behind.
The third burglary on June 29 was at El Jimador on West Edgewood Drive, where authorities believe Blackburn and his accomplice cut out a portion of the wall and ceiling above the bar to get inside. Nothing appeared to have been taken, but several thousand dollars’ worth of damage was done.
A fingerprint lifted at Mi Tolteca matched Blackburn, and surveillance footage at China Wok and El Jimador reportedly show Blackburn in their businesses. Also, a shoeprint found at El Jimador matched shoeprints left behind at Colton’s.