(Stillwater) — An arrest warrant has been issued for a Perkins man who is accused of illegally acquiring a Stillwater woman’s debit card number to open a credit account and charging $1,961 worth of goods in two days’s time in Stillwater and Cushing.
If convicted of identity theft, Sonny Edward DeCastro, 31, could be given as much as a five-year prison term and a $100,000 fine, according to the charge filed last week by Payne County Assistant District Attorney Kathy Thomas.
Stillwater Police Detective Richard Alley wrote in an affidavit that a Stillwater woman reported to police last summer that someone had used her bank debit card number to make fraudulent purchases in the Stillwater area.
She said that she still had her debit card in her possession and that she had not done business at any of the stores where the fraudulent transactions occurred, the affidavit said.
Four months later, the detective was called to assist patrol officers by interviewing DeCastro about attempting to use stolen credit card numbers, the affidavit alleged.
DeCastro said that his brothers and a cousin, Victor Celso Jr., work at a tire shop in Stillwater, the affidavit said.
DeCastro said that his cousin obtained the woman’s debit card number and that DeCastro put the number on a Green Dot card purchased at a Stillwater drug store, the affidavit alleged.
The woman later told the detective that she had brought her car to that tire shop last summer, the affidavit said.
The technician who worked on the car according to the sales invoice was Victor Celso, the affidavit alleged.
When DeCastro was shown debit card dispute forms for the woman’s account, DeCastro admitted to committing 13 fraudulent transactions totaling $763 on Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 of 2008 at businesses in Stillwater and Cushing by using her stolen debit card number, the affidavit alleged.
His cousin, Victor Manuel Lomboy Celso Jr., 22, of Cushing, has not been charged in that alleged identity theft, court records show.
However, court records show that Celso is currently on probation for taking a debit card belonging to a Yale woman, who accidentally left it behind after paying for dinner in 2007 at a Cushing restaurant where Celso was working, according to an affidavit by former Cushing Police Officer Cody Manuel, who now is a Stillwater police officer.
Celso pleaded guilty to taking the customer’s debit card and was placed on two years’ probation last November, with an order to pay $1,185 restitution, perform 40 hours of community service and pay $150 to the victims’ compensation fund, court records show.
In another case stemming from a traffic stop on Highway 177 by Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Hooten in May, Celso has been charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, court records show.
Celso was freed on $10,000 bond and ordered to appear in court this week with an attorney for arraignment on the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 11 years’ incarceration and an $11,000 fine on conviction.
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