Throwing Items Out Car Window Was Tip-Off: Couple Arrested in Target Scam

A Lake Elsinore couple were jailed Saturday after the woman was spotted throwing items out a car window and her partner tried to buy a laptop computer with a stolen credit card, authorities said Sunday.

The woman, identified as Jinny Francis Angels, also had been arrested in April after reportedly staring at a security camera while rummaging through a San Juan Capistrano home.

Security guards at a Target store on California Oaks Road in Murrieta say they spotted a man with a tattoo of brass knuckles on his face as the one who tried to buy a laptop computer Friday with a credit card.

The man—later identified as Jeffrey Michael Cole, 29—had reportedly been spotted using stolen credit cards at the Target earlier. Cole and his alleged accomplice, Angels, 20, sped away in a vehicle, Murrieta police Sgt. Matt Henry said in a statement.

Both suspects were chased, caught and arrested.

“Officers arrived at the Target just as Cole and Angels began to drive away through the parking lot,” Henry said. “When officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop on the vehicle, it failed to yield and began to drive through the parking lot at a high rate of speed. Angels began throwing items out of the vehicle’s window.”

Cole later stopped the vehicle near the Chipotle and both he and Angels fled on foot, Henry said. 

“Cole was quickly apprehended in the middle of Monroe Avenue,” he said.  “Angels was located minutes later hiding in the Wings and Things.”

Henry said an investigation revealed that the pair tried to buy a laptop with a stolen credit card discovered to have had just been stolen out of a vehicle at the LA Fitness. 

“In addition, items located in Cole’s vehicle and the items that were thrown out of the vehicle’s window by Angels were determined to have been stolen during prior vehicle burglaries,” he said. 

Cole was also found to be in possession of brass knuckles and Angels had an outstanding felony warrant, Henry said. 

Cole and Angels remained behind bars Sunday on suspicion of a host of offenses, including second-degree burglary. Cole was being held on $100,000 bail and Angels on $75,000 bail and both are set to appear in Murrieta Superior Court at 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to online jail records.

Angels’ Facebook page carried a picture of Cole—depicted as being a fellow graduate of Elsinore High School—that said: “In a relationship since November 20, 2012.” Cole’s Facebook page showed an image of a man with a tattoo on his face of brass knuckles.

—City News Service contributed to this report.