Wednesday, July 12, 2006

"'Missing' U.T.S.A. Student Now a 'Wanted' Woman"

Remember Naomi Fuentes? The UTSA student who disappeared, thus sparking an all-out effort to find her? And she turned up in a battered women's shelter up north, only to disappear again after police talked to her, and the shelter would not reveal where she went in order to "protect her privacy"?

Turns out she embezzled money from her company, and now an arrest warrant has been issued for her.

From WOAI:

An 'arrest warrant' was issued on Wednesday for Naomi Fuentes. Investigators believe she faked her own abduction to cover up a crime.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Windcrest police filed a warrant for the arrest of Fuentes. The investigation against her revolves around the misuse of a company credit card.

"From what we know on the credit card, there was initial usage of the card to almost $50,000 and about $47,000 for the total usage," said Detective Scott Purcell of the Windcrest Police Department. ...

The crime didn't surface until this spring. Two days after her boss was contacted by authorities about the card, Naomi Fuentes disappeared. She was last seen at the Downtown U.T.S.A. campus. Authorities later found out she had left by choice. ...

Windcrest police are now contacting authorities in New York and Canada to see if they can find Naomi Fuentes. They plan to bring her back to face charges.

The battered women's shelter was a convenient way for her to evade the law. That's low, and that shelter should help the police find this criminal instead of covering for her in the name of privacy. Such actions will only encourage other female criminals to abuse a valuable resource in order to further their crimes.

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