The old saying declares that desperate times call for desperate measures, but Tallapoosa Police say one man’s actions went too far when he allegedly began selling faulty laptops from the trunk of his car. The alleged operation ended recently at the Pilot Travel Center convenience stop in Tallapoosa, where the last victim of Michael Anthony Shearill, of Jackson, Miss., happened to be a plain-clothes police officer.

Tallapoosa Police Chief Scott Worthy suspects Shearill had been traveling up Interstate 20 to sell the laptops to people, especially in small towns. However, his budding business took an unexpected downturn last Monday, Oct. 26. Worthy says Shearill was parked at the convenience stop on Highway 100, and at approximately 5:20 p.m., an unmarked officer was entering the store to buy a beverage, when Shearill approached him to buy a laptop he was offering for $200.

“The officer told him he didn’t have the money on him, and he’d call his wife, but instead he called us and said we should come to the scene,” Worthy recalled from the incident report.

Shortly afterward, officers arrived on the scene, where they recovered five boxes containing nicely-packaged laptops that appeared to be new on the outside. However, after digging deeper, police learned that the attractive packaging disguised damaged and disfigured laptops that would likely go unnoticed by customers until they had left with the merchandise, also leaving them short the $200 they spent for a seemingly good bargain.

“Some of the laptops were missing the keypad, had cracked screens, the hard drive was removed from all of the laptops, and black electrical tape was holding parts of the laptops together. All of the useable parts had been removed,” Worthy said.

Police also recovered a duffle bag that contained 14 more laptops and marijuana on the scene, where Shearill simply said, “I’m just trying to make some money,” upon his arrest, according to Worthy’s report of the incident. Worthy says Shearill also told police he had previously sold a “couple of laptops.”

As a result, Shearill awaits trial in Tallapoosa for charges on possession of counterfeit items, possession of marijuana and driving without a license.

Meanwhile, Worthy urges the community to be cautious about purchasing unbelievably priced merchandise from people as the holiday season gets underway in these poor economic times. He stressed “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is, and be mindful that you get what you pay for.”