Suspected Con Man Stalled by Clerk Until Police Come : Crime: She recognizes him as the man involved earlier in the store in what is described as a swindle by a woman who wired him money there. He is held on theft count.

Grocery clerk Shelley Crenshaw was shocked Wednesday when a man who had used her store’s Western Union service two weeks ago to swindle a woman of $2,500 walked in again to pick up a money transfer, police said. So she stalled him.

The quick-thinking clerk detained Mark Wayne Kinsler, 32, of Westminster long enough for police to arrive at Smith’s Food and Drug Center and arrest him on suspicion of grand theft.

Kinsler was waiting for a $2,500 money wire from a 75-year-old Ohio man, police said. The Ohio retiree had been told the payment would make him eligible for a $100,000 payoff from the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes, police said.

Crenshaw, 28, told police Kinsler was the same man who had received another $2,500 payment, that one on Sept. 8 from a retired New Jersey woman, police said. That woman called the store at 13220 Harbor Blvd. a few hours later to tell employees that she had been conned.

“I felt so bad for that woman, and we made a photocopy of her check in case the guy ever came back,” Crenshaw said. “I didn’t think he would, so when I saw him I was shocked. I’m glad they caught him. People work too hard for their money for some lowlife to take it from them.”

Crenshaw stalled as her manager contacted Western Union, and she herself called Garden Grove police when Kinsler went to use a pay phone. Store records showed Kinsler had collected on a third $2,500 payment in August. Police said FBI agents in Los Angeles are investigating Kinsler on previous complaints.

While Crenshaw waited for police, she also telephoned Willard Joslin, the Dayton retiree who on Wednesday wired the money to Kinsler. Joslin said Thursday that he was stunned to hear that he had wired $2,500 to a grocery store. He said he thought the money had been sent to the Anaheim offices of Merrill Lynch as an up-front tax payment required to secure a sweepstakes jackpot.

“That little lady at the store, bless her heart, told me I had been conned, and I told her to grab my money for me,” said Joslin, who added that he had gotten his money back in full. “I thank her for sticking up for me. She should be a detective, out catching skunks who rip off old people.”

Kinsler is being held at Orange County Jail.