WATAUGA, Texas - A man arrested last year who was involved in a Lego theft ring was found guilty by a Tarrant County jury last week, and will spend the next 45 years in jail.
Lego thief sentenced
Winston Love, 28
On June 4, a Tarrant County jury found 28-year-old Winston Love guilty of organized retail theft with a deadly weapon.
He was later sentenced to 45 years in prison for the offense.
Police connected him to thefts across North Texas Target stores mainly involving Lego sets. Coffee makers, vacuum cleaners and Playstation controllers were also recovered after his initial arrest in Oct. 2025.
A search warrant for Love's residence revealed evidence of a major theft ring stretching from Texas to Oklahoma, mainly involving tens of thousands of dollars' worth of Lego products.
Lego theft ring
Lego Theft Ring: Man accused of stealing from at least 23 Target stores in DFW
Watauga police arrested a man suspected of nearly two dozen thefts across multiple North Texas cities. Among the stolen merchandise were thousands of dollars' worth of Lego products.
The backstory:
Love was arrested in Oct. 2025 following a shoplifting call in Watauga. Investigators said he walked out of the Target store on Highway 377 with $1,300 worth of Lego toys.
Police tracked him to a home where he’d been staying, which resulted in a brief standoff before he was arrested peacefully.
"We know of 23 here locally just in the last two months. There are over 80 additional incidents that have occurred being tracked since this individual has begun being tracked," Watauga Police Chief Jim Lewis said in Oct. 2025.
Love had eight outstanding felony warrants and has been arrested or is wanted for thefts at stores in Dallas, Irving, Plano, Flower Mound, Euless, Fort Worth, Lewisville, Mansfield, Arlington, Irving, and Frisco.
Dig deeper:
Love's trial was the first under Texas's Organized Retail Theft statute, which applies to crimes committed on or after Sept. 1, 2025.
The Source: Information in this story comes form the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office.