A man with a criminal history of burglary was arrested by Newport Beach police in connection with multiple cases of locker room burglaries around Fashion Island since September .
The suspect – David Scott Raines, 44, of Beaumont, Calif. – was taken into custody late Friday after an alert employee of the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa spotted the suspect as he tried to enter the hotel’s spa facilities, but was denied access to do so.
The hotel and other businesses in the area had been put on alert to the suspect’s methods and the man’s description after similar burglaries took place last September at the Island Hotel and 24-Hour Fitness on Newport Center Drive. Police said the suspect in those cases used credit cards stolen in the burglaries to make retail purchases at Fashion Island shortly after the thefts took place.
According to NBPD spokesperson Kathy Lowe, the quick thinking Marriott employee “recognized Raines after he tried to make a spa appointment and asked to use the restroom facility in the spa. The employee denied him access to the spa and he immediately left the hotel. The employee then witnessed Raines boarding a bus at Newport Center Drive and Santa Barbara Drive. The bus was stopped a short distance away and Raines was arrested without incident.”
According to police, Raines is suspected of carrying out the September 11 burglary of a locker at the Island Hotel and then making purchases at Fashion Island with stolen credit cards taken in that case. He has not officially been named a suspect in the 24-Hour fitness case.
The Independent has also learned that Raines has a criminal history. He was sentenced to 16 months in California state prison after being found guilty of more than a dozen counts of felony burglary in 2000, according to Orange County District Attorney spokeswoman Susan Schroeder.
Raines is being held at the Orange County Men’s Central Jail on a $150,000 bond and is slated to be in court tomorrow according to Sheriff Dept. jail information reviewed by the Independent.
