Police Reopen Inquiry Into Bus Fare Thefts

Five months after a trio of Orange County Transportation Authority employees were convicted of pocketing $5,300 in bus fares, sheriff’s officials said Thursday they are reviving an investigation into the theft.

The probe, which investigators dubbed the “one buck at a time case,” involves a group of OCTA workers who were responsible for cleaning and refueling a fleet of buses at the end of each day. In January, three workers pleaded guilty to charges that they learned to jimmy the locks on bus-fare boxes and withdrew a dollar bill or two from each.

On Thursday, Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Dan Jarvis said new information led investigators to reopen the case. Neither he nor OCTA officials would elaborate except to say that the earlier case initially involved five people.

None of the convicted men still works at the transit authority, and the two other suspects recently resigned, OCTA spokesman Dave Simpson said.

The three convicted workers were arrested at work in the agency’s Anaheim bus center.

Kheim Van Tran, 36, of Garden Grove pleaded guilty to misdemeanor grand theft and served 15 days in jail. Nicholas Argentieri, 43, of Alta Loma and Jesus Hernandez, 39, of Placentia each pleaded guilty to felony grand theft and served three months in jail. The men also were fined $200 each.