Three out-of-towners were arrested at a Valencia cellphone store Tuesday night on suspicion of burglary.
A woman and two men were arrested after they allegedly used someone else’s identification to purchase cellphones from the cellphone store on the 26400 block of Bouquet Canyon Road, Shirley Miller, spokeswoman for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station told The Signal on Wednesday.
Deputies made the arrests shortly after responding to the store at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Crystal Atwood, 27, of Los Angeles, was arrested on suspicion of burglary, a felony.
Atwood was arrested four other times since October 2016 by officers assigned to the West Valley Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, according to Los Angeles County arrest records. Each arrest was made in Van Nuys, and each time on suspicion she committed a felony.
On Wednesday morning, about 10 hours after she was arrested in the SCV, Atwood was released from custody after posting bail set at $10,000, according to information maintained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Inmate Information Center.
Two men were also arrested at the cellphone store Tuesday night. They are: Thomas Onstott, a 44-year-old handyman who lives in Sunland, and John Shepherd, a 41-year-old drug counselor who lives in Van Nuys.
Shepherd was arrested in July 2016 on suspicion of having committed a felony. He remains in custody.
Onstott, like Atwood, was released from custody after he, too, posted bail Wednesday morning.
All three suspects were scheduled to appear in San Fernando Superior Court Thursday.
In the last couple of months, cellphones have been become coveted items for thieves in the Santa Clarita Valley.
A robbery on Oct. 30, marked the sixth time in less than two months that phones were stolen from phone stores either through smash-and-grab burglaries of robberies.
Recent phone thefts include:
– Oct. 30 – two men entered the AT&T store on The Old Road at Pico Canyon Road, about 8:50 p.m. and stole at least three phones including the Samsung S8 Plus cell phone.
– Oct. 25 – two men entered the store shortly after 1 p.m. on Wednesday, on Soledad Canyon Road, at Sand Canyon Road, and stole at least four cell phones, a woman working at the store told The Signal.
– Oct. 24 – thieves smashed the storefront window of a phone store on Newhall Avenue, stealing iPhone 8 phones.
– Sept. 8 – Shortly after 1:50 p.m. Friday two suspects described as two African-American men in their 20s entered the Verizon store at the Valencia Marketplace complex on The Old Road near McBean Parkway.
– Sept. 12 – The robbery happened about 9 p.m. when three men wearing ski masks entered the AT & T store on Bouquet Canyon Road at Newhall Ranch Road, demanding merchandise and money.
– Sept. 26 – About 9 p.m., two masked men entered the Verizon store on The Old Road and stole more than 100 pieces of technology, more $85,000 worth of cell phone technology.
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