Key West man pleads guilty in theft, witness-tampering cases

Patrick George Cummings, 56, was adjudicated guilty and sentenced after Monroe County prosecutors tied a Key West theft case to a later effort to interfere with the witness. The case combined a bedroom burglary on Seminary Street with a witness-tampering allegation, turning what began as a property crime into a broader felony prosecution in Monroe County court.

Cummings entered pleas on March 26, 2026, before Circuit Judge Mark Jones, resolving two related felony cases in Florida’s Sixteenth Judicial Circuit in Key West. He pleaded no contest to grand theft over $750 and guilty as charged to tampering with a witness, ending a pair of cases that had worked through the local system for months.

Prosecutors said the underlying theft happened Oct. 12, 2025, at a residence on Seminary Street, where Cummings entered the victim’s bedroom while she was asleep and took a purse containing personal identification, credit cards and about $2,000 in cash. The victim was also his landlord, a detail that made the offense more personal and more disruptive than a routine break-in or theft from an unknown home.

The case widened after Cummings was arrested, prosecutors said, when he contacted the victim multiple times despite a no-contact order and tried to offer money if she would drop the charges. That conduct led to the added witness-tampering felony, reflecting the State Attorney’s view that the fallout from the theft had become an attempt to influence the justice process itself.

As part of the sentence, Cummings was ordered to serve 36 months of probation on both cases, running at the same time. He must report to the Department of Corrections within 24 hours, have no contact with the victim and remain outside Monroe County while on probation. The court also ordered $2,000 in restitution, along with $1,676 in court costs and fines, closing the case with convictions, financial penalties and a probation term tied to the original theft and the later interference.