Photo: 2018 Volkswagen Golf
Grand theft, unauthorized computer access and a slew of other crimes have landed a Buena Park man in jail. He was identified on December 21st, 2018, through the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Rapid DNA Program and charged with three felony counts on Christmas Eve.
The circumstances leading up to the case in question started back on June 11th, 2018, when Damian Taylor Maxey, aged 24, provided a DNA sample to the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) DNA database as part of his plea agreement and sentence in the charge of unauthorized use of personally identifiable information.
Six months later, at about 9am on December 15th, an Orange County man exited his house to find that his Volkswagen Golf was no longer parked in his driveway and that property had been stolen from inside of his Volkswagen Jetta. Items thieved totalled about $1630 and included a MacBook Air, two pairs of Beats wireless headphones and a spare key to the Golf. The victim’s cars had been parked in his driveway at about 9pm the previous night.
The victim contacted the Costa Mesa Police Department and a CSI team processed the car. Officials were able to collect DNA samples from the site, including items inside of the VW Jetta that the suspect had moved and a used cigarette butt on the driveway pavement in between where the Jetta was and the Golf had been parked.
The Costa Mesa CSI team submitted a portion of the cigarette butt to the OCDA Rapid DNA Program for forensic analysis on December 19. The following day, the OCDA Rapid DNA Program tested the cigarette butt and determined, thanks to a matched DNA profile, the suspect in the robbery to be Damian Maxey.
On December 21st, Costa Mesa police performed a probation search of Maxey’s residence, where they found items consistent with those stolen from the VW Jetta. The Golf and its spare key, however, remained missing. At the time of arrest, Maxey was accused of possessing stolen property and deleting all data from the victim’s MacBook, rendering it inoperable at the time of recovery.
On December 24, Maxey received felony counts of grand theft, receiving stolen property and unauthorized computer access, on top of his felony convictions from June 2018 (identity theft and a 2017 burglary).
He was scheduled to be arraigned on December 26 at 10am at the Santa Ana Central Jail. The maximum sentence for Maxey is six years and eight months in state prison.
