Yuman catches man who stole his credit card

When a Yuma Marine discovered that his and his wife's credit/debit card number had been stolen, he took matters into his own hands. He followed the trail of charges to a local hotel where the man was staying and kept him there until police arrived. Adrian Rodriguez, 21, has since pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail.

Douglas Tanner, 42, of the 11000 block of South Jerome Avenue, told The Sun he was checking his bank account online when he noticed "some kinda quirky charges." After confirming with his wife they were not hers, he went to his bank to view them.

"There was like four or five charges for hotels, and something about Quest prepaid cell phones," Tanner said.

Since the hotels were in Yuma, he decided to go to each one to see if they had surveillance cameras and to try to find the person who placed the charges.

He said at the first two hotels, staff said the rooms were booked online. The person did not show up, but the hotels charged the card number.

The next hotel he visited was the Quality Inn, 711 E. 32nd St., where he was told by the manager that the man who had used Tanner's credit card number, Adrian Rodriguez, was at the hotel.

Tanner said he called police while the maintenance man checked Rodriguez's room. As Tanner was on the phone with police, Rodriguez walked by the front desk.

Then the maintenance man asked Rodriguez to come to the front desk, where the manager talked to him until police arrived.

According to the Yuma Police Department report, Rodriguez was taken into custody and admitted to signing the credit card charge authorization form at the hotel. But, he reportedly said, it was his friend Johnna Orta who called in the credit card number for reservations.

Rodriguez, who had no fixed address, was booked into Yuma County jail on June 13.

The report said Rodriguez also used Tanner's credit card number to pay for a room at the Comfort Inn, 1691 S. Riley Ave.

Tanner told The Sun he recently received a letter from the Yuma County Attorney's Office stating Rodriguez had taken a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent use of a credit card, was found guilty and was sentenced on Sept. 27 to one year in jail. He said another count of fraudulent use of a credit card and a charge of forgery were dropped.

YPD spokesman Clint Norred said Orta has not been located, but police are still looking for her, because she is considered to be a person of interest in this case. She is 27 years old and is described as being 5 feet 4 inches tall, 165 pounds, has blonde hair with black roots and a gap between her teeth. She may reside in the Foothills area, according to the report.

Tanner said Rodriguez compiled about 15 different charges, plus online charges, on his wife's credit card before he was caught. The report said the fraudulent charges for hotels and cell phones totaled $604.68, plus pending charges.

According to the report, the hotel's proper procedure for a phone reservation is for the clerk take the actual credit card when the customer arrives and swipe it to charge the room to the card, and to ask for identification. However, the Quality Inn night clerk who waited on Rodriguez did not follow the procedure, despite having been an employee of the hotel for about two years.

The clerk admitted to not following procedure but said he had asked Rodriguez to bring the card to the desk "when he could." He said Rodriguez's identification matched the name in the computer, but he did not know if Rodriguez ever brought the credit card to the front desk, the report said.

Tanner said his theory is his wife's credit card number was written down by someone who saw it at a restaurant, because two of her co-workers had fraudulent charges on their cards and the three of them eat lunch out weekly.

According to the report, Rodriguez had tried to use one of Tanner's wife's co-workers card numbers, but she had closed the account, so the card was declined.

Tanner said he would be paying cash at restaurants from now on.