Police Stuck With Leftovers of Stolen Property

A meeting room at the Ventura Police Department looked like a department store last week. But even with merchandise available for a steal, the cops couldn’t unload their inventory.

Laid out on tables and chairs were tens of thousands of dollars worth of items that had been ripped off during a reported one-man burglary spree spanning three cities and lasting for a year, police said.

There were hand-held drills and electric saws, air compressors, handguns, rings, watches and necklaces, along with dozens of suitcases and backpacks believed used to haul the goods out of homes, police said.

“It was sort of his 401K plan, I guess,” Ventura Police Cpl. John Snowling said.

It is one of the largest caches of stolen property seized by police in several years. Items were found in the suspect’s garage in Santa Paula, in a storage unit across the street from his home and in boxes that filled a rented bedroom in Thousand Oaks.

After detectives arrested 44-year-old James Dean Robbins, they mailed out fliers to more than 200 burglary victims in Ventura County, asking them to come down to the station and look at the items.

Only about 70 people showed up to reclaim property, Snowling said, because some victims had already settled with their insurance companies and replaced the stolen items.

Meanwhile, police have hauled the leftover property back into their already crammed evidence room, where it will sit until a judge decides whether it should be sold at auction or returned to Robbins.

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Not exactly a clean getaway.

The 51-year-old owner of a now-closed Camarillo travel agency has been charged with bilking more than $20,000 from people across the country who thought they were paying cheap rates for Florida vacations.

According to detectives, Timothy Deinhard, owner of Get-Aways Travel Inc., allegedly was faxing fliers to businesses that advertised air-and-hotel packages for five nights and six days in Daytona Beach or Orlando.

The trips, which ran between $200 and $400, were purchased by dozens of people in New York, Alaska, Montana, Texas and Minnesota, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Det. Mike Bamford.

Despite having to sit through a lecture on time-share condominiums that the travelers weren’t told of when buying the packages, the problem wasn’t the trips but the cost.

Deinhard allegedly double billed up to 53 customers, using both homemade, unauthorized checks he deposited into his local bank account and credit card numbers of customers, Bamford said.

Employees at Camarillo Community Bank didn’t suspect a problem at first, because even though several checks Deinhard had deposited bounced, he had been a good customer for several years.

Deinhard was charged with 10 counts of possessing and passing fictitious checks. He is free on bail, pending a court hearing this month.

“It’s simply the old adage,” Bamford said, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

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Say it isn’t so.

Trial is expected to start next week for a 28-year-old former Ventura Police Department employee charged with bilking her blind, sclerotic and diabetic mother out of at least $150,000.

Leigh Diane Williams, a former parking enforcement officer who resigned after being arrested last year, stands accused of financial elder abuse, grand theft and unauthorized use of a credit card.

“This is one of the larger cases we’ve had,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Bruce Young said.

Williams’ trial falls in the midst of a new education campaign by the county that uses posters at bus stops to warn people about elder abuse.

According to police, Williams allegedly robbed her mother, Carole Jean Williams, 53, of a nest egg that included a life-insurance payment from the death of her husband, the suspect’s father.

Young said Carole Williams, who lives in a local convalescent home, testified at a preliminary hearing in September that she was unaware her daughter was allegedly stealing from her.

If convicted, the younger Williams faces up to four years in jail, a year more than a straight grand theft charge--because of legislation that enhances the penalties for crimes against the aged.

She is free on her own recognizance.

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at holly.wolcott@latimes.com