A man who Palm Beach Police said drove a stolen vehicle to President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in November is now poised to face charges.
That comes less than a month after the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office said it would not file any charges against 53-year-old Farbod Dolat of Sarasota, who was arrested Nov. 14 near Mar-a-Lago.
With sufficient information received from police, the charges of vehicle theft and operating a motor vehicle without a license can move forward, a State Attorney’s Office spokesperson said this week.
In a Dec. 18 filing in Palm Beach County court, Assistant State Attorney Michael G. Kridos said that while there was probable cause to make the arrest, “the evidence cannot prove all legally required elements of the crime alleged and is insufficient to support a criminal prosecution.”
In new documents filed Jan. 3, Dolat is now scheduled to be arraigned on the charges on Jan. 23.
Security personnel stand guard outside the Southern Boulevard entrance to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach following an apparent attempted assassination of Trump at the Trump International Golf Course in suburban West Palm Beach on Sept. 16.
Police had said in an arrest report that Dolat on Nov. 14 pulled up to Mar-a-Lago that day and asked to speak to Trump — while Dolat was behind the wheel of a stolen SUV.
The gray Hyundai Kona that Dolat drove across the state from his home in Sarasota belonged to a rental company, which said that a woman had rented the small SUV. When Palm Beach Police contacted the woman, she said she knew Dolat and that they had met earlier that day to buy a car near Sarasota, the arrest report said.
While the woman went into a bank to get money, Dolat stayed in the car, and the woman told police that she returned to find the Hyundai and Dolat gone.
That is, apparently, when he drove to Mar-a-Lago.
A judge had previously ordered Dolat not to have any contact with Trump, Mar-a-Lago or the protected areas around Mar-a-Lago and Trump’s other properties. That order was canceled when the State Attorney’s Office declined to file charges, and it’s unclear if it will be implemented again.
It remains unclear why Dolat wanted to speak to Trump. Dolat’s attorney with the Palm Beach County Public Defender’s Office did not previously return a request for comment after the charges were not filed. That department has a longstanding policy to not comment on open cases.
Dolat is one of at least five people who have tried and failed to reach Trump at Mar-a-Lago since July 13, when a gunman injured the then-presidential candidate and two others and killed one person during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Since the July incident, the U.S. Secret Service said it increased security around Trump, his properties and all of the people the agency protects. Following the Secret Service’s foiling of an apparent assassination attempt at Trump’s suburban West Palm Beach golf club in September, security grew even tighter around Mar-a-Lago.
More layers of protection — including the use of robotic dogs to patrol the property — were added after Trump won the Nov. 5 general election.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Sarasota man to now face charges in stolen car incident at Mar-a-Lago