Photo: Carly Jo Orrison, Kevin Derrick and Aaron Derkacz
SANTA BARBARA — In a community where boys and girls grow up at the beach and become avid lifelong surfers, Santa Barbara and neighboring Goleta just might rank as among the worst geographical areas to steal surfboards and then try to sell them off to a local used sporting goods retailer.
But, according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, that’s exactly what Santa Barbara residents Aaron Derkacz, 44, Kevin Derrick, 25, and 26-year-old Solvang resident Carly Jo Orrison attempted to do at the Play It Again Sports retail store at noon on January 3rd.
When Derkacz walked into the store and began negotiating the sale of a used surfboard, the store manager quietly called 911 to report “a subject inside attempting to sell stolen surfboards.”
Moments later, an SBSD patrol unit rolled up into the parking area immediately in front of the store, and deputies made contact with Derkacz while he was still inside the retail establishment.
It was quickly determined that the surfboards had been reported stolen just one day earlier, whereupon deputies made contact with Orrison and Derrick sitting in a pickup truck parked outside the business. When deputies learned that the pickup truck had been reported as stolen from a Santa Maria location a month earlier, questions for the threesome began in earnest.
During the parking lot inquiry, “Orrison and Derrick repeatedly provided false information to deputies,” which lead to a thorough search of the pickup truck and the discovering of “multiple items of suspected stolen property, including laptop computers, cell phones, U.S. mail, and credit cards.”
Derkacz, Orrison, and Derrick were all taken into custody and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where they were booked on charges of possession of stolen property, possession of a credit card skimming device, indentity theft, mail theft, and providing false information to a peace officer.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
