A Brown County man faces three felonies after police say he stole guns from a family member’s boyfriend, then opened credit cards in two people’s names.
Nicholas Allen Jones, 24, of Garrity Road, was charged June 26 with theft and two counts of synthetic identity deception, all Level 6 felonies.
The charges stem from an investigation led by Lt. Mike Moore with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department. Moore received information on June 20 about the stolen guns and someone opening fraudulent credit cards in Jones’ family member’s name and her boyfriend’s name. The man gave police a list of guns missing and where he believed Jones had pawned them.
The next evening, the man told Moore he had attempted to recover two of the guns from Cash America Pawn in Indianapolis. The man also reported that his girlfriend wanted to assist in the investigation because she found out that Jones had opened two credit cards in her name that she did not authorize, the police report said.
The man told Moore on June 25 that he had received a call from a credit card company asking if he had applied for a new credit card. He said he did not and cancelled the request. He also said that in April, he found his Social Security card on Jones’ bed.
The sheriff’s department found two of the missing guns in Indianapolis at Cash America Pawn. Three more were found at two different pawn shops. Nine of the man’s guns were still missing, along with the ammo. He also reported finding a missing gun in Jones’ vehicle, the police report said.
The other victim had received notice in May that two inquires had been made on her credit, but she was able to call the banks to cancel the credit card requests. She then received a letter from another credit monitoring company on June 12 stating that an address was added to her credit report. It was for a car dealership where Jones was working in Columbus.
In a police interview on June 25, Jones admitted to taking several guns from the safe and either pawning or selling them. He also admitted to taking some ammo and pawning it in Columbus. He admitted to opening credit cards in both the relative and boyfriend’s names using identification found in the gun safe. He was able to open the safe after manipulating the electronic lock, the report said.
He was booked into jail.
