Police Track Down Trio Suspected in Multi-State Phone Scam to Palm Springs

By City News Service:

Two men and a woman suspected of perpetrating a nationwide phone scam during which they posed as auditors to steal money from people and businesses were all being held without bail Tuesday in Riverside County detention facilities.

Sean Michael Acree, 18, of Cincinnati, Ohio; Jerry Michael Davies, 40, of Silt, Colo.; and Katherine Leigh Ferneding, 28, of Lakeside Park, Kentucky, were arrested by Riverside police on suspicion of grand theft and being fugitives from justice.

Acree and Ferneding are being held at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning; Davies is locked up at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.

According to Riverside police, the trio were located and taken into custody without incident Thursday on East Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs.

Detectives identified the threesome during an investigation initiated last month after the manager of a Riverside gas station fell prey to a fraud scheme the suspects allegedly had used on multiple occasions in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Utah and Washington, Detective Jeffrey Acosta said.

He said one of the suspects phoned the gas station and told the manager that an audit of the business was underway as part of a corporate investigation into embezzlement. The victim was told that if he failed to cooperate, he could face disciplinary action, according to Acosta.

The manager was instructed to count all the currency in the register and set it aside for a member of the corporate team, who would come by to personally take possession of it. Acosta said one of the suspects arrived a short time later and collected the funds, then left.

The trio are all wanted by Colorado authorities for allegedly perpetrating a similar scam.

It was not immediately clear whether they would be extradited before their Riverside County case is resolved.

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