Manuel Rosales
VENTURA COUNTY — The old saying that “criminals always return to the scene of the crime” may not be so far-fetched after all.
That myth was validated for Ventura County Sheriffs at the Ojai Patrol Station in the pre-dawn hours of May 27th when 62-year-old Manuel Rosales of Oxnard was spotted by an observant insomniac citizen rifling through neighborhood mailboxes and stealing their contents.
Ojai Patrol deputies and detectives promptly responded to the residential street and made contact with Rosales.
Perhaps realizing there was no other possible reason for him to be walking around the quiet streets of the Ojai neighborhood at 4:00 a.m., according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Will Hollowell Rosales “confessed to stealing mail in hopes of obtaining documents to commit identity theft,” the same crime for which he was arrested and charged in January 2016.
At that time, Rosales’ criminal behavior had been recorded on video in the same neighborhood, pursuant to which he was arrested a short time using credit cards stolen from the same mailboxes. At that time, he was charged with identity theft and booked with his bail set at $50,000.
Having posted that bail amount and a free man awaiting scheduled court appearances and clearly not intimidated by his prior arrest or the possibility of eventually winding up with a prison sentence, Rosales’ latest theft of mail and attempted identity theft earned him another ride to Ventura County Jail where he remains with his bail now set at $130,000.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
