JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The squad car was gone.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office-issued Glock and rifle were also stolen, investigators said, in a burglary caught on surveillance video.
The high-profile break-in at a local JSO officer’s home in October 2019 led to criminal charges against her ex-husband, charges that include Armed Burglary and Solicitation to Commit Burglary.
According to police, Marine Staff Sgt. Bruno Bego orchestrated the theft, hiring four others to burglarize his estranged wife’s home as payback for an alleged affair.
However, Bego’s attorney is now arguing that because it was his home, too, there was no “burglary.”
“Burglary is two things -- being where you're not supposed to be, and doing what you're not supposed to do,” Bego’s attorney Chris Carson said during a Friday hearing on his motion to dismiss the two primary charges. “We have a circumstance where it is uncontroverted that Mr. Bego is the fee-simple owner of the property in question.”
Although Bego owned the home with Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer Jourdin Bego, he had moved out and was living at Camp Lejune in Jacksonville, North Carolina at the time of the incident.
Carson did not deny there was a theft.
“There's no question there, it absolutely happened," Carson said. "The only question is, for purposes of the burglary statute, do the people who committed the theft stand in the shoes of the person who is alleged to have been the principal?”
He added that "as a homeowner [...] I can allow whomever into my house.”
Circuit Judge Mark Borello asked Assistant State Attorney Joe Licandro to respond.
“Mr. Carson's argument is that he did have the legal right [to be in the home],” Borello prompted. “And that if he did have the legal right, then he potentially had the legal right to authorize others to go into the home.”
Licandro challenged the idea that Bego’s rights as a homeowner were transferrable, and suggested it would only matter if Bego was claiming he’d given the four people charged with conducting the burglary permission to enter.
“Unless I'm wrong, Mr. Bego is not admitting that he arranged for someone else to break into his home,” Licandro said.
Jourdin Bego attended the hearing but did not speak.
Circuit Judge Mark Borello agreed Carson’s argument was interesting but said there was nothing in case law to support it.
“You said, ‘Look at I don't have a case law. I don't have a case that says that,’ because I don't think there is one.”
Carson conceded case law is scarce for a reason.
“It is exceedingly rare for someone who owns a property be charged with burglary on the property they own,” he said.
Borello denied the motion, agreed to give Carson time to speak to an appellate lawyer about possibly appealing his decision.
“It’s a very ripe issue for appeal,” Borello said.
Bego is due back in court May 20, when a trial date will be set.