A woman from Arkansas and a couple from Wichita have been charged after allegedly making multiple purchases with fraudulent credit cards at furniture stores across Missouri, including Jefferson City.
Trenise Boston, 26, of Arkansas, has been charged with felony use of a credit device as well as one count of felony possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance.
Britney Crigler, 27, and Quantin McIntosh, 34, both of Wichita, are each charged with one count of misdemeanor receiving stolen property.
Officers responded Monday to Furniture Factory Outlet on Missouri Boulevard, according to Jefferson City Police Department probable cause statements. Store management told officers Boston had made more than $8,700 in fraudulent purchases at the store. They also learned Boston had made a fraudulent $18,000 purchase at an FFO store in Sedalia and a fraudulent $12,000 purchase at an FFO store in Warrensburg.
Boston had provided law officers and store officials with a false name, and it took fingerprint identification to reveal she had a warrant for her arrest from Arkansas.
Boston was found to be in possession of 43 Visa pre-paid credit cards, some of which did not have a maximum spending limit.
While in the Cole County Jail, Boston made a phone call to a man requesting he get a bag she had left in the U-Haul she had been driving, which was still on the FFO lot.
Officers went back to FFO on Tuesday morning after getting a report of people trying to get into the U-Haul. Officers stopped a vehicle seen leaving the parking lot driven by Crigler, with McIntosh as her passenger. Crigler was found to have a suspended Kansas driver's license and was in possession of several gift cards she said had been given to her by McIntosh.
Officers searched the U-Haul and found a bag containing sales receipts from each of the FFO stores signed with an alias Boston was known to have used. There was also a bag of what was believed to be ecstasy pills and marijuana.
In separate interviews, Crigler said she was offered $250 and furniture to drive Boston and McIntosh to FFO stores to buy several thousand dollars' worth of furniture using fraudulent gift cards. She said she drove to Kansas City, Warrensburg and Sedalia, but Boston handled the purchases.
McIntosh told investigators he drove only to the Jefferson City store trying to help Boston, who was his girlfriend, and he knew nothing about the fraudulent gift cards.
Video from the FFO store in Warrensburg shows the three suspects looking at furniture, authorities said.