Two UCF employees allegedly had their purses stolen out of their offices by Daymary Dayana Sintjago, an 18-year-old citizen of the Netherlands, investigators said.
The UCF Police department was called out to the Health & Public Affairs II building on Sept. 10 where Amy Buford, an Academic Advising Coordinator at UCF, told police that her purse had been stolen out of her office.
She told police she hadn’t been out of her office for more than a few minutes, but her purse, which contained her cell phone, money, credit cards, gift cards and other personal items, was gone.
Buford told police she froze her credit cards immediately, but someone had already made a few charges, including two charges to The Edge apartment complex totaling over $800.
A second call was made to UCFPD a few days later on Sept. 19 by Catherine Mobley, an SI Graduate Assistant at the Student Academic Resource Center who was working in Howard Phillips Hall. She told police a similar story, that her purse had gone missing from her office during the work day.
Mobley told police that fraudulent charges were made using her credit cards for amounts totaling a little under $800.
Tracing the charges, UCFPD investigators were able to link the payments made at The Edge to Sintjago and her cousin, who also lives at The Edge.
Both suspects were brought in for questioning and Sintjago admitted to police that she stole Buford’s purse in HPA II and used her credit card to pay her and her cousin’s rent at The Edge. She said she was coerced into the act by a few men wearing UCF blue maintenance uniforms, police said.
Investigators looked into the allegation and found out that a UCF maintenance crew and outside contractor were working near Buford’s office in HPA II, but that the men had nothing to do with the crime.
Sintjago was charged with burglary of a structure; grand theft 3rd degree; use of credit card of another; fraud; credit card theft; and fraudulent use of credit cards greater than $100.
“One of the characteristics that differentiates UCFPD from other law enforcement agencies is that we investigate everything that is reported to us,” Courtney Gilmartin, UCFPD spokeswoman, said. “We take reports of theft seriously, and as these cases demonstrate, our detectives work extremely hard to conduct thorough investigations that result in criminal charges.”
UCF police believe Sintjago is involved in another incident of similar nature that happened this fall and are currently investigating the crime.
