A Twentynine Palms man was arrested last week, after reportedly using fraudulent returns to steal from his place of employment. On Thursday (February 17) the manager of the Autozone store in Twentynine Palms contacted the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to report a theft. The store manager allegedly reported that one of their employees, identified as Dylan Mathison, 24, made several fraudulent returns of items from the store. Mathison is said to have placed the funds from the returned items onto gift cards, then used the gift cards and purchased items from the store for himself. Through fraudulent returns and purchases, Mathison is suspected to have stolen an estimated $6,500 from Autozone.
During the investigation, a Sheriff’s press release says that deputies developed information that stolen items would be located at Mathison’s residence in Twentynine Palms. A search warrant was authored by deputies for Mathison’s residence, which was located at the 73000 block of Sun Valley Drive. During the service of the search warrant at the residence, deputies located several stolen items from AutoZone. Deputies recovered and returned over $5000 worth of items to AutoZone.
Dylan Mathison was subsequently arrested and booked at the Morongo Basin Jail for investigation of grand theft and possession of stolen property where he is being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.
