Photo: Stock Image
It was a bright sunny morning in downtown Camarillo on September 29th when a 61- year-old women, minding her own business as she alighted from her parked car, was suddenly accosted a male suspect who attempted to rip the purse she carried off her shoulder.
But the woman was apparently not ready to lose her purse or its contents. According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Det. Kristopher Doepking, she “maintained her grip on the purse” which only led to her being thrown to the ground and then being summarily “dragged along the ground.” Injured at this point, the victim relinquished her grip on her purse and the suspect immediately “ran to a waiting vehicle” which was driven by a second male suspect.
When “multiple deputies and investigators” responded to the scene, the victim was able to give them a detailed description of the suspects and their vehicle. Those details were promptly transmitted to the Ventura Police Department and the hunt for the miscreants and their getaway car was on. Shortly thereafter, a VPD motorcycle cop spotted the suspect vehicle and conducted a traffic stop.
Contact was then made with 23-year-old Robert Jensen and 31-year-old Marin Reyes, both transients. The suspect vehicle was quickly determined to have been stolen out of Redondo Beach, Ca, and Jenson was the subject of “a felony warrant issued out of Kern County, Ca.”
Shortly thereafter, the female victim received a fraud alert that her credit card had been used in a fraudulent transaction at a nearby gas station and at a local Target retail store.
Both Jensen and Reyes were transported to Ventura County Jail, where they were booked on multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit a crime, robbery, vehicle theft, identity theft, possession of tear gas, and petty theft from a vehicle, with their bail amounts respectively set at $290,000 and $$120,000.
