Grand Jury Indicts Couple, Son in Credit Card Scheme : Crime: They are accused of using confidential financial information about country club members to obtain at least $250,000 in cash and goods.

A federal grand jury has indicted a Canyon Country couple and their 28-year-old son, accusing them of fraudulently obtaining at least $250,000 in cash and goods with credit cards issued in the names of more than 50 members of a Porter Ranch country club.

Among those indicted was Elissa Adlard, 59, a secretary at the Porter Valley Country Club who allegedly used confidential financial information about members to obtain the credit cards used in the fraud scheme.

Adlard, her husband, James, 62, and the couple’s son, Thomas, a business office manager in Fresno, were arrested Thursday by Secret Service agents after indictments were issued by a federal grand jury in Fresno.

“She was a middle-aged motherly type,” club General Manager Ray Hazzard said of Elissa Adlard. “It was a surprise.”

The club has about 1,000 members and is owned by Dallas-based Club Corp. of America, which owns 250 private membership clubs including the Braemar Country Club in Tarzana and the City Club in downtown Los Angeles.

According to prosecutors, the Adlards also fraudulently obtained loans to buy two houses--one in Canyon Country, the other in Fresno--using proceeds from the credit card scheme as cash down payments and lying about Thomas Adlard’s employment history on loan documents.

Hazzard said club members, who pay a $12,500 one-time entry fee and annual dues of $3,300 to belong to the 25-year-old club, are only now learning of the fraud scheme which may, at least temporarily, complicate their credit ratings if their names were used in it.

“It was very frustrating not to be able to tell them,” Hazzard said. “But we were told not to by the agents.”

Hazzard said he had been told at least eight months ago about the federal probe’s focus on Elissa Adlard.

Assistant U.S. Atty. William Hahesy of Fresno said law enforcement officials will be preparing a notice that will be sent to the club’s members urging them to do credit checks on themselves to see if their names had been used in the fraud scheme. By doing so, members can start straightening out their credit ratings and help authorities further pin down the extent of the scheme, he said.

As for the money lost, that’s the credit card companies’ problem. “They’re the one’s left holding the bag,” Hahesy said. According to Hahesy, Elissa Adlard got Social Security numbers and bank account information about members from club records and then used that material to obtain a slew of credit cards, including ones issued by Discovery, Wells Fargo Bank, the Broadway, Texaco and First Interstate Bank.

The Adlards, federal authorities alleged, had the cards and subsequent statements mailed to mail drops or vacant houses which they had access to during the two years they ran the scheme. The family used the cards to obtain cash, either through ATM machines or through the convenience or courtesy checks issued by some credit card companies, and deposit it in accounts they set up under aliases. The family would make minimal monthly installment payments to keep their credit card accounts open.

After operating the scheme for a while, the family purchased two homes using the cash proceeds to obtain loans from Home Savings of America and from North American Mortgage Co., federal authorities alleged. To buy the Fresno house, for example, Thomas Adlard allegedly used $23,574 obtained from the credit card scam and borrowed another $99,150 from North American.