SAN JOSE – On Dec 19 of 2013, 28-year-old Jason Cedrick Arnsworth of Inglewood, 29-year-old Anthony Lyde of Inglewood, and 41-year-old Eugene Robert Hamilton of Los Angeles were arrested for PC 459-460 (b), second degree burglary, PC 530.5 (a), Identity theft, PC 484-e (d), false information on a credit card, and PC 502.6 (b), possession of a re-encoding credit card machine. Hamilton also has three prior convictions under PC 667 (b), and 667.5 (b) for robbery for which he was sentenced in Federal Court for the violent crime and felony possession of a controlled substance.
The three men entered the Macy’s and Nordstrom retail stores located at the Valley Fair Mall on Stevens Creek Blvd in San Jose. It was found that all three suspects had gone to the mall with the intent to steal clothing items and other luxury goods using fraudulent credit cards that had been altered. Their plan was to try and purchase high end items and then seek a cash return on the goods.
Anthony Lyde (Facebook)
Two black males were identified by Macy’s Loss Prevention employees as having attempted to purchase expensive items using gift cards utilizing numerous cards they had in their possession. When the gift cards were used up, the two black male suspects Lyde and Arnsworth began to try numerous credit cards until one would go through.
When SJPD officers located the two black male suspects leaving Macy’s with Eugene Hamilton, a search of his person revealed he was in possession a California Drivers License, 14 credit cards, and 19 debit and gift cards. Anthony Lyde had in his possession three Mastercards, two Visa cards, one Discover card, two gift cards from Shoe Pavilion, and a California ID card in his name. When officers requested the SJPD Dispatch run the numbers on the California ID and the numbers turned out to be fake. Macy’s identified Lyde as of purchasing several women’s hand bags from their department using one of the Mastercards. Lyde explained that the California ID was fake so he could get into clubs but didn’t do anything wrong, and that the credit cards were his.
Jason Arnsworth was also identified as using a Visa card at Macy’s to purchase items. Upon searching Arnsworth’s wallet, he was found to have in his possession five Mastercards, four Visa cards, three Macy’s gift cards, two Nordstrom gift cards, one Lowe’s, and a Game Stop gift card. Eugene Hamilton was also found with several credit cards with the last names Hamilton, Arnsworth, and Lyde on them. The total number of forged credit, debit and gift cards totaled 86 between them.
The three suspects were caught passing bad cards at the Valley Fair Mall.
Merchandise that had been purchased from Macy’s was recovered and returned to Macy’s. Further evidence was collected at the scene. SJPD officers discovered more fraudulent credit and debit cards, as well as other merchandise fraudulently purchased from Macy’s and Nordstrom’s. All three suspects were then booked into the Santa Clara Main Jail for second degree burglary, and credit card fraud. Due to the type of crime that was being committed an agent assigned to the REACT task force with the Secret Service was contacted and briefed on the card skimmer and other evidence thought to have been used to fraudulently purchase the merchandise using stolen bank account numbers. The evidence was collected and taken into custody for further discovery on what other purchases may have been made with the fraudulent cards.
On January 16, 2014 a motion was heard in which the defendants requested a bail reduction from $191,000 to $126,000. The next court hearing has been set for plea on Feb 10, 2013 at 9:00 A.M. in Dept. 34.
