An attentive manager at a West Lake Hills jewelery store helped police arrest a woman for theft.
Peter Thomopoulos said he received an e-mail warning on April 1 that stated a woman was targeting Austin area jewelry stores and writing bad checks. The e-mail was from an alliance of Austin jewelry stores.
The e-mail included a description of the woman's appearance. It also saidthe womanwouldshare the samestory at each store. The e-mail said she wouldclaim she was buying jewelry for her mother.
Tuesday morning Thomopoulos was on high alert when he got a phone call from a woman. She told him a similar story to the e-mail warning. An hour later she came to West Bank Jewelers on Bee Caves Road in West Lake Hills.
I had a gut feeling she was going to come here, and when she called, I had the biggest smile on my face. I wasn't letting her go, Thomopoulos said.
Ibasically baited her with it. She wrote the check, and now she's sitting in jail, Thomopoulos said.
Thomopoulos said he had tipped off West Lake Hills police, and an officer was watching the transaction from a back room at the store. The woman tried to buy the gold bracelet with a check.
Investigators say she later confessed she had no bank account. An officer escorted the woman out of the store in handcuffs. Now Lisa Marie Gonzalez is in Travis County Jail for misdemeanor theft.
Round Rock Police Detective Kevin Bender said Gonzalez is also accused of writing a bad check at a Round Rock jewelry store. He said Gonzalez may be linked to as many as eight jewelry stores and may haveused bad checks to take morethan $10,000 worth of jewelry.
I don't think she would have gotten caught without the jewelry stores communicating by e-mail and telephone and advising each other what to look for, Bender said.
Bender said Round Rock police will file a theft by check charge against Gonzalez.
