FROM THE COMFORT OF THEIR JAIL CELLS

A DIABOLICAL SCAM THAT SNARED ORDINARY PEOPLE. THE REAL SHOCK IS THAT IT WAS PULLED OFF BY PRISONERS

- Doug Shadel

LIKE so many of us, Kaj Miller, 50, almost never answers her home phone anymore. But when it rang one Saturday morning in August 2015, the caller ID read ‘San Diego County Sheriff’s Office’. Since she’d had a number of family members in trouble with the law over the years, she decided to pick up. Turns out that she was the one in trouble. The officer on the phone told her she had missed jury duty and there were warrants out for her immediate arrest.

Miller didn’t believe him. “I had just served on a jury three months before,” she says, “so I pushed back and told him I thought it was a scam. I asked to talk to his supervisor.”

The man on the phone calmly said “No problem,” gave Miller the number for the sheriff’s office, and told her to ask for the Court Services Division. When she called the number, a recording answered with “San Diego County Sheriff’s Office,” then ran through a series of prompts. She pressed 3 for the Court Services Division.

Captain Dwight Garrison picked up the call and, after a pause to check her status, told her the same story: She had missed several jury duty notices and there were two warrants in circulation for her arrest. “Unfortunately, because it’s Saturday, if you don’t work with me to pay the $989 [`74,858] fine, officers will come out to your house and arrest you.”