Detectives with the Bossier Financial Crimes Task Force arrested two home health care workers today for stealing personal information from their victims and using that info to charge thousands of dollars on credit card accounts.
Detectives arrested Robin Early, 52, of Bossier City for identity theft and Franchesa D. Ruffins, 25, of Bossier City for identity theft and exploitation of the infirmed as the result of two separate investigations.
Early is accused of stealing personal information from a 98-year old Bossier City woman whom she worked for as a home health assistant. Early used the info to open up three credit card accounts on which she made more than $7300 in purchases over the past year.
Ruffins is accused of stealing credit card account information from an 83-year Shreveport man while she was employed to care for the man and his disabled wife at the couple’s home. Ruffin then used the account information to rack up more than $5700 dollars in purchases that she made on the Internet. An investigation shows Ruffins made the purchases over the past five months.
Early and Ruffins were booked into the Bossier City Jail. Bond has not yet been set on either suspect. Both worked independently and were not affiliated with a home health agency.
The Bossier Financial Crimes Task Force is composed of white collar crime investigators with the Bossier City Police Department and Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office. Bossier City Chief of Police Shane McWilliams and Bossier Parish Sheriff Julian Whittington formed the task force by combining resources from both agencies to combat crimes such as identity theft, fraud and embezzlement with the city and parish.
