4 Held on Suspicion of Fraud, Drug Possession

The use of an apparently unauthorized credit card to pay for two rooms at an Anaheim hotel this week led to the arrest of several people on suspicion of fraud and drug possession, police said Wednesday.

“It’s a pretty significant bust,” Werner Raes, a detective with the Anaheim Police Department, said of the arrests at the Sheraton Hotel on Ball Road.

Police were alerted, Raes said, by a call from the hotel Tuesday reporting that four people had checked into two rooms for which they were paying with an unauthorized credit card. When officers arrived, he said, they found methamphetamine in one of the rooms and several suitcases filled with as many as 1,500 apparently pilfered financial documents in the other.

Investigators said they also found hardware commonly used to create counterfeit credit cards and identifications, as well as a 1999 Mercedes SUV believed to have been stolen from a Santa Ana dealership in October.

Arrested and booked for possession of methamphetamine were Gerry Lynn Groves, 33, of Westminster and James Allen Harrington, 51, of Stanton. Their companions--Catherine Vannessa Tate, 22, of Artesia and Lee Oren Dick, 27, believed to be a transient--were booked on suspicion of auto theft, credit card fraud, burglary, identity theft and counterfeiting.

Police said that Dick is believed to be responsible for more than $100,000 in credit card fraud across Southern California, including about $8,000 in Anaheim. “Law enforcement has been pursuing him for a good six to eight months,” Raes said.