Ventura County – Going to the gym and getting regular exercise is challenging enough without worrying that your cash, credit cards, money, and best shoes are being ripped off while you’re huffing and puffing your way toward that incredibly elusive (dare we say “impossible to achieve”?) six-pack ripped magazine-cover fitness ideal.
While there are signs in every gym club locker room urging members to secure their belongings with lock and key, a large percentage of people subscribe to the “honor system” and the unspoken pledge that “I’ll leave your stuff alone if you leave my stuff alone.” It’s a mutual understanding that, in most membership gyms, provides some guarantee against thievery.
James O’Neil
That understanding, over the past few months has been egregiously violated throughout the Thousand Oaks area, for, as reported by Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Jason Robarts, there has recently been a marked “increase in burglaries to lockers at the local health clubs,” including Gold’s Gym, 24-hour Fitness, and Spectrum Club. Through video surveillance records and witness reports, VCSD investigators determined that James Oneil, 31, and Avree Tisinger, 25, were connected to a series of locker thefts at those private facilities.
Even those lockers “secured” with combination locks were apparently viable targets for Oneil and Tisinger, as Robarts reported that following their apprehension by Deputies, the suspects admitted “that they would look for locks that still had the combination code sticker from the back, which gave them access into the lockers,” and then use stolen credit cards and ID information to purloin cash from local area ATMs.
Both Oneil and Tisinger were transported to Ventura County Jail, where they wer booked on multiple misdemeanor and felony charges of burglary, possession of stolen property, and grand larceny.
Photos: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
Read more:
VCSTAR: Deputies arrest 2 in Thousand Oaks gym thefts
