Email  Print

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

 

A Sonoma woman was arrested Thursday, May 12, after allegedly using a credit card number stolen from a customer at the retail business where she worked to pay off a $1,000 debt she owed at an area market.

According to Sgt. Greg Stashyn, with the Sheriff's Valley substation, things started unraveling for the 45-year-old suspect on Wednesday, May 11, when a Valley resident reported receiving a credit card charge of $159.83 from a Springs business she hadn't been to since last October. The victim then discovered two more charges on her card, both for $525, from a second business in the Springs. The cardholder told deputies she had no idea how someone would have gotten her credit card information.

While investigating the two charges, totaling $1,050, deputies discovered that the cashier at the business where the first fraudulent charge had been made, had reportedly bounced some checks at the market in question and was being pressured to make good on them.

The cashier then allegedly texted the market with a credit card number taken from her place of employment, with instructions to use the card to make good on the bounced checks.

On May 12, deputies interviewed the cashier about the misuse of the credit card number, both at her place of employment, where she allegedly rang the charge through and pocketed the cash, and at the market, where she used the card number to pay off her bounced checks. Deputies arrested Lisa Hyde, 45, of Sonoma on charges of felony fraudulent use of a credit card.

In other incidents reported to the Valley substation:

Tuesday, May 10:

5:47 p.m. - From the bathroom to the bed. A 58-year-old woman, identified by Sheriff's deputies as one of the Valley's "frequent fliers," ended up in jail after refusing to leave a residence in the 900 block of Harley Avenue. The occupant of the residence, who knew the "flyer" in question, told deputies the woman showed up at her residence intoxicated and asked to use the bathroom. She accommodated the request but after a few minutes decided to investigate and found the woman asleep on a bed.

The resident asked the intoxicated and uninvited visitor to leave, but she refused. When deputies responded to the resident's call she told them she didn't want to press charges against the woman, she just wanted her to leave.

Deputies then told the unwelcome guest she had to leave the residence, and when she did, they promptly arrested her for public intoxication and a probation violation that banned her from consuming alcoholic beverages.

Wednesday, May 11:

5:36 p.m. - Shouting at cars on probation. A Sheriff's deputy was sent to the area around Calle del Monte and Central Avenue in response to a report that a man was standing in the street shouting at passing cars. The deputy found a man near the intersection matching the description provided by a caller and immediately recognized him from past contacts. He also knew the suspect was on probation for previous drug-related convictions. An expert evaluation by the deputy convinced him the 28-year-old man was under the influence of a central nervous system stimulant, and he placed him under arrest for being under the influence of a controlled substance and for a probation violation.

5:51 p.m. - Stereo gone. A motorist who left his car in the Park-and-Ride on Arnold Drive and Fremont Drive, reported that while he was gone, someone removed the after-marker Jensen in-dash stereo from his car. Nothing else was missing. The man valued the stereo at $250.

Sunday, May 15:

1:18 p.m. - Computing the price of meth? Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the 18400 block of 4th Avenue after a woman reported that her daughter had stolen her computer and sold it for drugs. Deputies found the daughter, who told them that she had given the computer to her mother and, after a dispute, took it back and sold it. Deputies found that the daughter wasn't under the influence of a controlled substance, but that she did have some methamphetamine in her possession. They then arrested Kathleen Patterson, 21, of Boyes Hot Springs, on felony charges of possession of a controlled substance.

Monday, May 16:

7:29 a.m. - More than a one-man job. Sometime over the weekend, unknown persons broke into a locked enclosure belonging to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in the 1400 block of Fremont Drive and stole a Miller welder. The reporting party told the deputy that it would have taken more than one person with a truck to steal the welder, which he estimated weighed between 800 and 1,000 pounds. The welder was valued at $3,500.