Tool Theft
On Sept. 9, 2015, at 0805 hours, Monrovia officers were dispatched to the 100 block of Norumbega Drive regarding a subject asleep in a vehicle with the engine running. Upon arrival the officers and found a male adult who they recognized from prior contacts hunched over in a vehicle that matched the description of a vehicle used in a recent theft of tools. They woke the subject who exited and dropped drug paraphernalia. They detained the subject and discovered his vehicle was loaded with what appeared to be stolen tools. Officer recognized some of the items in the vehicle matched the description of the tools taken from the theft. The subject was arrested for being under the influence and suspicion of grand theft. The vehicle was towed to the station. During the booking process a card for a local storage location was located in the subject’s wallet.
Detectives were notified of the arrest and wrote search warrants for the subject’s vehicle, home and storage locker. While serving the search warrant at the residence, a victim from a commercial burglary in Irwindale arrived at the residence claiming the suspect in our case may be the same suspect who broke into his business and stole his Snap-on tool box loaded with tools valued over $30,000. Detectives took his information and continued with the search. During the search of the location numerous empty tools bags were recovered and loose tools. The tools described from the Irwindale case were not recovered at the location.
The storage locker turned out to belong to a different person, so that search was not conducted. Later, a photograph of the suspect in custody was shown to the storage facilities manager who identified the suspect as having a different storage locker under a different name. A revised search warrant was obtained, signed, and served. The storage locker was filled from floor to ceiling with miscellaneous tools. Along the east wall, detectives noticed a large black Snap-on tool box which was locked. Detectives contacted the victim from the Irwindale case and he brought a key to the tool box, which unlocked it, and in one of the drawers there were receipts in the victim’s name for the purchase of the tools, and tool box.
The search warrant was served on the vehicle which also contained numerous tools. Some of the tools in the vehicle were tools taken from several cases over the past week in Monrovia. To date, five cases have been identified which include cases from Monrovia, Glendora, and San Diego. The investigation is continuing and detectives will be contacting other agencies in an attempt to locate additional victims.
Elderly Scams
Over the past year there have been several cases where elderly citizens have been approached by a male subject claiming there was something wrong with their vehicle. The subject would state that he could repair the vehicle on the spot. He would often not give the victim time to respond and would do the repair anyways and charge the victim. He would often charge anywhere from $500-$8,000 and would be rather intimidating at times so the victims unwillingly paid the amounts. The suspect description was similar in many cases, but no suspect was identified. This type of situation was occurring in several local cities. LASO had a case in Temple City where deputies managed to obtain a DNA sample from the steering wheel of a vehicle which returned with a hit. This suspect had been featured in “America’s Most Wanted” for similar crimes throughout the country. Detective Oberon handled the investigation on the Monrovia cases and was able to identify the same suspect in five of our cases. Detective Oberon presented the case to the District Attorney’s Office and was able to obtain a filing in each of our cases and get a 1 million dollar warrant for the suspect.
Embezzlement Case
Detective Chad Harvey received an embezzlement case from a company who reported the crime back in October of 2011. An employee had embezzled money from them. Once the investigation was occurring, it was discovered that the employee had been embezzling money for several years. The employee actually paid for kids to go to college, get a car, remodel a kitchen, go on vacations, and pay for bills. This information was obtained by conducting 20 search warrants on accounts belonging to the employee. The loss was determined to be in excess of approximately $950,000. After a year of investigating the case, it was taken to the Major Fraud Division at the District Attorney’s Office in LA where charges were finally filed against the suspect in September 2015.
