A Centreville woman received two, suspended sentences last week for committing two credit-card crimes. She is Keomi D. Payton of 5828 Belcher Farm Drive.
In a March 20 affidavit for a warrant to search Payton’s townhouse, a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service explained the case against her. Due to the nature of his work, Centre View is not revealing his identity.
HE WROTE that an investigation conducted by the Secret Service and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office led to Payton as the person who stole and then used someone else’s credit card. He noted that the card was used at "several different retail locations throughout Northern Virginia" between Jan. 4-13.
According to the agent, the victim identified Payton from a surveillance video obtained from Target. "The video showed an individual purchasing items with the stolen credit card," he wrote.
Kraig Troxell, Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said that county "initiated the case because the victim lives in Loudoun, but the actual crimes took place in Fairfax County." He said Payton and the victim worked at the same company in Fairfax.
On March 21, authorities charged Payton with one count each of credit-cart theft, credit-card forgery and credit-card fraud. The credit-card forgery offense was later dropped, but the other two charges were certified to the grand jury.
On July 16, the grand jury indicted Payton on them and she later pleaded guilty. She returned to Circuit Court last Friday, Oct. 26, for sentencing. At that time, Judge Charles Maxfield sentenced her to 12 months in jail on each charge, suspending all that time, and running the sentences concurrently.
He also placed Payton on active probation for a year and ordered her to pay $500 a month until her $2,000 total restitution is completely paid.