Computer technician takes cash and pawn shop’s laptop

Erneldo Cruz

A Belize City couple is out of a laptop computer after being scammed by a technician.  Glenn Gordon and his common-law-wife Monica Usher of M&J’s Pawn Shop reported to police on February seventeenth that they requested the assistance of Erneldo Cruz, known to them as “Virgil”, to install a program on a Compaq brand laptop.  Cruz, who took the job on January eleventh, agreed to return the laptop on that same day.  But it wasn’t until four days later Cruz returned to the pawn shop at the Commercial Center where he collected seventy-five dollars from Usher.  He went there without the laptop and promised once again to return it that day.  Since then they lost contact with Cruz, a resident of Raccoon Street Extension. He appeared unrepresented before Magistrate Sharon Frazer and was read charges for Obtaining Property by Deception and Theft.  He pleaded not guilty to the charges and obtained bail. He will reappear in court on April first, 2010.