On Thursday, June 28, officers of the Santa Monica Police Department arrested two individuals of Woodland Hills, California as the result of an investigation that started on May 29, 2012, at 2:47 p.m. when officers were summoned by the Doubletree Hotel, located at 1704 Fourth Street in order to investigate a fraud that had occurred.
When the officers arrived at the Doubletree Hotel they spoke with the hotel manager who told them on May 27, 2012 two suspects had checked into separate rooms using fraudulent credit cards.
The management added that it had taken two days for the credit card company to notify the hotel that the credit cards were fraudulent.
The manager had told the officers that when the credit card company had informed him of the fraud he had spoken with one of the suspects and had informed him that the credit card was fraudulent.
The suspect had then told the manager that he would arrange for alternative payment, but when the suspect failed to appear at the front desk to pay, the manager had gone to the respective rooms and discovered that the suspects’ luggage was packed ready to leave, but the suspects themselves were not to be found.
The manager then secured the rooms and called for the police to investigate the fraud. The case was assigned to an investigator and by June 6, 2012 the suspects had been identified and a case built against them.
The investigator also discovered that the suspects had been involved in many other fraudulent activities throughout the San Fernando Valley area.
This brings us back to Thursday, June 28 when the suspects were apprehended at their place of residence in Woodland Hills, and arrested and taken to Santa Monica Jail.
The first suspect, a 23-year-old man of Woodland Hills was charged with forgery and obtaining credit by using another person’s identity.
The second suspect, a 33-year-old man, of Brooklyn, New York, was charged with possession of more than 10 peoples identities, fraudulent use of account information, and obtaining credit using another person’s identity.
Bail was set at $50,000 for each man.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
