For eight hours, Mauricio Jimenez Serrano’s feet dangled above the stove of a Cobb County restaurant, according to investigators.
Serrano had tried to break into Los Bravos on Roswell Road by going through the grease trap, police previously said, but he instead got stuck, and that’s where employees reporting to work found him hours later on the morning of March 13.
Late last week, a Cobb grand jury indicted Serrano on nine counts, including burglary and criminal damage to property, according to the district attorney. Investigators said they have linked Jimenez to similar crimes at three other restaurants.
Serrano was indicted on four counts of second-degree burglary, three counts of criminal damage to property in the second degree, theft by taking and possession of tools for the commission of a crime, his indictment states.
“I see a guy. The guy’s legs are hanging from the hood of the kitchen,” Los Bravos restaurant manager Julio Angel told Channel 2 Action News after the March 13 incident. “I can see from his waist to the bottom. He’s pleading for help and he’s thirsty. He wants water and I’m telling him, ‘Why did you do this?’ On top of the hood, there’s like a little opening. This guy probably thought he was slim enough to come through. He removed a couple of the filters so he could make it through.”
Security camera video appears to show Serrano enter the restaurant around 1:30 a.m. March 13. Shortly after 9 a.m., he was found by employees, according to investigators. The burglary and the process of freeing the suspect caused about $4,000 of damage to the vent, according to police.
Serrano, who lived in Marietta, previously worked at a different Los Bravos restaurant but was fired in 2015 for stealing, according to an arrest warrant.
Serrano is missing three fingers on his right hand, and video surveillance footage helped investigators link him to other crimes.
On March 5, he allegedly entered the Laredos Taqueria & Grill on Cobb Parkway in Kennesaw through a vent. Once inside, he’s accused of stealing three bottles of tequila and about $180 while causing $3,700 in damage, an arrest warrant states. Two days later, Serrano is accused of burglarizing Don Pedro on Fairground Street by going through the vent and then stealing cash, according to investigators.
And on Feb. 16, Serrano was caught on video entering the Los Bravos restaurant on Wade Green Road through a grease vent and stealing $800, according to police.
He was being held without bond Monday in the Cobb jail.
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