Identity Theft Suspects Arrested

By Jim Ruffalo
An alert resident’s concern led to the Sunday morning (April 26) Placer County Sheriff’s Office arrest of two transients on suspicion of identity thefts.
   The Castle City Mobile Home Park resident, who’d been aware of a recent rash of mail thefts and misuse of identities in the area, noticed a car loitering in the area of the park’s mailbox cluster.
   “(The resident) talked to two people in the car and saw an envelope on the ground,” Press Information Officer Dena Erwin said, adding that the resident then contacted the envelope’s addressee.
   “He found out that her medicine hadn’t been mailed to her on time so he notified us,” Erwin said, adding that she would not identify the resident by name.
    Taken into custody by arriving deputies at 6105 Nob Hill Dr. inside that Newcastle trailer park were Joseph R. Brooks, 33, and Jessica Ybarra, 30.
   Erwin said Brooks formerly lived at Highland Park, while Ybarra’s parents lived at the site of the arrest.
   “Both were on searchable probation, which led to the discovery of a bottle of blood pressure medicine that had been inside the now-empty envelope,” Erwin said, adding that credit cards and personal information belonging to at least three other nearby residents were found in the search.
   The two were booked at the Placer County Jail facing charges of possessing stolen property, identity theft, theft of access cards and petty theft.  
   Bail for each was set at $19,000.
   Erwin said the trailer park’s management said they would be replacing the present mailboxes with lockable ones.