Ordering flowers from Melbourne florist Mark Bryant cost at least eleven people their identities which Bryant used to buy Internet porn, according to authorities which have charged him formally with identity theft—including against one victim who turned out to be one of his relatives.
Bryant is accused of copying customers' credit card numbers and using them to buy online porn, uploading adult videos right in the store, Brevard County Sheriff's deputies told the Florida news media March 15.
"He used their computers, I think primarily because he didn't want his wife to find that stuff on the computer at home," said sheriff's agent Todd Maddox to reporters.
Bryant's alleged doings unraveled after one credit customer at the Kabloom Florist shop blew the whistle on him. Investigators traced the charges to an AOL account based in North Carolina, according to one published report, but because of the delay in getting AOL to provide information on the account's owner, Bryant may have had more time to find prospective victims.
And the account holder probably surprised investigators: it belonged to another reputed Bryant victim who reported identity theft to the authorities. "She had no idea," Maddux said of this victim, "the suspect was a relative." Her name was not disclosed at this writing.
Kabloom Florist's owner, whose name was not disclosed, would not talk about the case, but authorities said the owner had no idea what Bryant was doing. Bryant is free on bail but no longer employed at the florist.
