Police Arrest Man in Lost Dog Scam, but Misha’s Still Missing

It was a con game involving bereaved pet owners, want ads--and cash.

But it took a new twist Tuesday, Fountain Valley police said, when plainclothes detectives accompanied a 65-year-old West Los Angeles woman to meet the stranger who answered her “lost dog” ad and promised to reunite her with “Misha,” her German shepherd--for a price. As requested, the woman met the man in a Fountain Valley parking lot. As requested, she paid him $300 in cash.

But when Misha was still nowhere to be found, police moved in, arresting the man who allegedly took the cash, identified as John Anthony Williams, 27, of New York, on suspicion of grand theft.

Police say Williams, who they believe may be using a pseudonym, also is the leading suspect in at least 18 similar frauds, each involving $200 to $400 in losses, in Los Angeles and Orange counties over the last six weeks.

In each case, Fountain Valley police spokeswoman Janet Reynolds said, the man chose his victims from the “lost and found” ads and preyed on their grief. Most times, the man would telephone someone who was seeking a lost dog, but sometimes the victim was missing jewelry and once, a cat, Reynolds said.

“He built up their hopes to feel their pet was going to be returned. But when it was over, they were right back where they started--only minus a few hundred dollars,” Reynolds said.

In this case and the 18 that preceded it, the victims had placed ads in either the Los Angeles Times or Orange County Register, Reynolds said. In each case, a male caller would claim to have found the animal or the jewelry, but would say that he had to be reimbursed for “his costs”--usually veterinary or boarding fees that ranged from $200 to $400, she said.

The victims would then meet the man in various Fountain Valley parking lots, then take him in their car to a house in Los Angeles--allegedly to retrieve the missing animal, Reynolds said. Once at the house, the man would disappear into the backyard.

“People would sit and wait, and wait, and wait, some of them half an hour--some of them probably longer” before they realized they had been swindled, Reynolds said.

Four of these frauds were reported to Fountain Valley police and another 15 were reported to Orange County sheriff’s investigators, said Fountain Valley Police Sgt. Lawrence Griswold, who added that there may still be other victims who have not reported similar incidents.

Police got their break Tuesday, Griswold said, when someone whose name was listed immediately above the woman’s in the lost and found ads called her to warn her of the fraud.

So when the woman, whose name was not disclosed by police, received a phone call Monday from a man who claimed he had Misha, she agreed to meet him--but she also called Fountain Valley police.

Six plainclothes detectives were waiting nearby at 3 p.m. Tuesday as the woman met Williams in a parking lot at the Valley Park Apartments in the 17300 block of Euclid Street. When she paid the cash, but “no dog was in sight,” police arrested Williams, Griswold said.

The woman was not available for comment Tuesday, police said, but Griswold said that rather than being pleased with the arrest, she was mostly just sad.

“She’s still hoping to find her dog,” Griswold said. “She was a little depressed to find he didn’t have her dog.”

Lost on March 9 in the area of Mulholland Drive and Beverly Glen Boulevard in Los Angeles, the woman’s dog is a female, spayed German shepherd with a coat of black, white and brown. “She answers to the name, ‘Misha,’ ” Griswold said.