The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office handled the following incidents in Lakeland during the first half of December 2015. (See the Jan. 21 issue for the remainder of December incidents.)
Editor’s note: All suspects are presumed to be innocent until presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and values are estimated for stolen/damaged items. These are brief summaries of detailed SCSO reports.
Dec. 1
U.S. 70 (false pretenses/swindle/confidence game)
A man reported on Dec. 1 he’d been tricked back in November into sending $5,000 in wire transfers to a suspect he thought represented a federal agency.
The swindle began with a Nov. 22 Facebook message claiming to be from his cousin in Water Valley, Miss. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had recently awarded her $100,000 through a program designed for people on fixed incomes, she said, but it first required $2,000 to get the paperwork started.
The victim, a resident on the 10200 block of U.S. 70, was skeptical. He agreed after the “cousin” reassured him she felt the same way until she got the big payout and her initial $2,000 back.
A male suspect followed up with a call, saying he was from HHS. He arranged for the victim to wire a $500 payment to a man in Vicksburg, Miss., on Nov. 24. After that payment, the victim received an ownership certificate from HHS for the promised $100,000.
The male suspect then tapped into the victim’s wallet again, saying that HHS could not deduct taxes and paperwork fees from the lump-sum payment, so he would need to send another $3,000.
The victim first checked with the person claiming to be his cousin, who said she had paid the additional fee. So the victim sent the scammers a Moneygram for $1,500 on Nov. 25, another Moneygram for $2,000 on Nov. 28 and a Western Union transaction on Nov. 28 to bring the total to $5,000.
The male suspect called back to tell the victim that so few people took advantage of the program that they had enough funds left over to double the payout. But the man got suspicious because of a related Facebook friend request he received, so he contacted his cousin. She told him someone had hacked into her Facebook page and that she was sorry for not contacting him.
Officers told the victim to keep all receipts and messages regarding the incident.
Dec. 4
Back Nine Drive (intimidation/domestic violence)
A Dec. 3 breakup led to vandalism/domestic violence and intimidation, a man reported on Dec. 4.
The man, a resident on the 9300 block of Back Nine Drive, said he confronted his live-in girlfriend about infidelity the previous afternoon and told her to move out. The woman and her son were gathering their belongings when they both began unwrapping his children’s Christmas presents and damaged a remote-controlled Air Hogs ($80), he said. He videotaped the two tearing off the wrapping. The victim also said the son threatened a beating but left him unharmed.
The suspects were gone at the time of the report. The woman is believed to be attending Lakeside for court-ordered rehab on weekdays.
There was no workable crime scene because the victim returned the items earlier on Dec. 4 and received replacements at no cost to him.
Dec. 7
Champions Drive (residential burglary)
An apartment burglary left a mother and son short of their electronics with no sign of how a suspect entered on Dec. 7.
The mother set the security alarm and locked the front door when she left for work around 8 a.m. When her son and a friend returned at 3 p.m., they said they found the front door standing open. Missing items included an Xbox and a Blu-Ray Disc player.
The alarm is not monitored but it is audible, and she said the alarm never sounded. The responding officer did not see any signs of forced entry to the door or doorjamb. All windows were secure.
A crime scene officer processed the scene for fingerprints but wasn’t able to find any of value.
Kingsridge Drive (residential burglary)
A couple on the 9700 block of Kingsridge Drive found their front door open when they returned home around 6:30 p.m. Dec. 7.
The door had been forced, damaging the doorjamb near the deadbolt. Items taken included a Panasonic 42-inch flat-screen TV ($600), a Vizio 60-inch flat-screen TV ($1,000), and $27,200 in jewelry from Cartier and Tiffany & Co. The female victim said some of the jewelry’s designs are complicated, and she will have to search for photos to make the descriptions clear.
The jewelry was in a small black box on the nightstand. About $20,000 in additional jewelry was not taken, including some on the bathroom countertop.
The burglary probably happened after 4 p.m. because an Amazon.com package delivered then was found torn at the top as if someone had looked in to view the contents (a box of toilet paper).
Attempts to contact a few neighbors were not successful, and the deputy was not able to lift fingerprints from the scene. There were no suspects at the time of the report.
Dropseed Drive (false pretenses/swindle/confidence game)
A woman reported a scam that offered her a gift card for staying with her insurance company, Cigna.
The victim, a resident on the 10000 block of Dropseed Drive, called the provided number at 8 a.m. Dec. 7 and complied with the request to provide a credit card number and Social Security number. When she was told that a $3.75 charge would be placed on her Discover card, she hung up and immediately cancelled the card.
She was barraged with multiple follow-up phone calls three phone numbers in the 201, 855 and 212 area codes. Each claimed to be from Cigna Privacy payroll. But when she contacted Cigna, she learned they do not send out gift cards for staying with the insurance company.
Dec. 9
Kaki Lane (theft from building)
A cleaning woman stole several checks and overdrew a customer’s bank account, the victim reported on Dec. 9.
The man, a resident on the 9400 block of Kaki Lane, said she arrived at 2 p.m. Nov. 24. He napped until 5 p.m. and headed to the gym for about an hour. When he returned, she had finished the cleaning and was gone.
He didn’t notice anything was missing until he received a bank statement weeks later, saying he had overdraft fees totaling $108. The statement showed three suspicious checks totaling $805.25, written in the days just before the cleaning woman arrived. Other checks were also missing, but he was not able to identify the correct numbers.
Then he noticed that multiple items left behind by a former girlfriend were missing after the home cleaning.
The missing items included 10 pairs of Fleet Feet and Oasis tennis shoes ($1,000), eight watches ($800), articles of clothing and cosmetics.
The victim was not able to provide serial numbers but said he could product receipts. He did, however, recall that the former girlfriend was the person who referred him to the cleaning woman.
He said no one else has had access to his home, and he was unsure why the cleaning woman would take belongings.
Dec. 14
Justin Lake Cove (residential burglary)
A mobile home park manager on the 9800 block of Justin Lake Cove reported Dec. 14 that a witness saw a burglary in progress.
The witness named the man he saw leaving a trailer with a stolen TV ($90). The manager said the suspect wasn’t authorized to enter the home, and other residents have said he has entered multiple mobile homes in the park.
The responding officer noticed that the TV owner’s mobile home had a front door that was not securely closed. He couldn’t process the crime scene because other individuals had tampered with it.
U.S. 64 (forcible fondling)
An incident of forcible fondling was reported at a business on the 9100 block of U.S. 64. The incident happened between 1:45 p.m. and 3:41 p.m. Dec. 14. Additional information on the case has not been released.
Dec. 16
Bluebridge Cove (simple assault/domestic violence)
A woman reported Dec. 16 that her husband had violently assaulted her about an hour before she called law enforcement.
She got home around 1 a.m., and the couple began arguing. She said he pushed her to the bathroom floor, choked her hard enough to block her breath, punched the back of her head once and slapped it several times, and slapped her across the nose and mouth, causing tooth pain and a small cut on her lip.
She said he threatened her afterward, saying he would show up at her work tomorrow and shoot her, then get someone else to kill her parents since he would be in jail. He told her to go to bed so she could go to work in the morning.
She removed her shoes to fool him into thinking she was staying at the home. Then when she had the opportunity, she ran to her sister’s home. Her husband had fled by the time officers arrived. She refused medical attention for her injuries. Then she was taken to Shelby County Jail East on unrelated warrants.
