A Texas man is going to prison for 45 years. He stole more than 200 Lego sets. And a jury just made history to put him there.

Winston Love, 28, was the first person in Texas tried under the state's new organized retail theft law. The law went into effect September 1, 2025. It was built to crack down on theft rings. Now Love is the first person it has sent away for decades.

The verdict reached far beyond North Texas. Organized theft rings operate across the entire state, including South Texas. The DA's office now knows how to use this law again.

Love went on a 50-day spree in the fall of 2025. He hit Target stores across the Dallas and Fort Worth area. He also crossed into Oklahoma. Police say he stole more than 200 Lego sets. He also took about a dozen coffee makers, several vacuum cleaners, and multiple PlayStation controllers. In all, he took more than $37,000 in goods.

Watauga police said they tied Love to 23 different Target stores in Texas alone. Those cities included Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Arlington, Frisco, Lewisville, Irving, Grapevine, Euless, and Mansfield. Police from many cities had to team up to track him down.

Lego sets are easy to steal and easy to sell. They move fast on resale markets like Facebook Marketplace and eBay. Thieves flip them for cash the same day. Police say this trend has grown across the country.

Love was bold. On October 27, 2025, he walked into a Mansfield Target. A store worker knew his face and called him by name. Love ran anyway.

Tarrant County DA Phil Sorrells described what happened next. "He sped away, at times driving on the wrong side of the road and endangering motorists, including children riding on school buses," Sorrells said.

That escape made things much worse for Love. Prosecutors charged him with using his car as a deadly weapon. That one move pushed his sentence from years to decades.

Police caught up with him four days later. On October 31, 2025, Love ran from a Watauga Target with $1,200 in goods. Officers caught him outside. By then, Love had more than $1.3 million in bonds stacked up across many counties.

A Tarrant County jury found him guilty on June 4, 2026. On June 10, they gave him the sentence: 45 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Sorrells called it a milestone. His office said this was the first jury verdict in Texas under the new organized retail theft law. Before the law changed, this kind of theft often led to lighter charges. The new law made stealing between $2,500 and $30,000 a third-degree felony. That is a serious charge that can bring 2 to 10 years. But add the deadly weapon charge, and the sentence jumped to 45 years.

Love is not done with the courts. He still faces 11 more theft charges in Dallas, Denton, Collin, and Comal counties. He also has a separate organized retail theft charge pending in Collin County.

Retail theft rings are not only a big-city problem. They operate across the entire state. South Texas communities deal with organized theft too. Law enforcement across Texas has been watching this case. The DA's office now has a clear path to use this law on th