Police destroy Spokane couple’s stolen gift cards

Dana Divine was overjoyed last October when Spokane police caught the woman who broke into her car and stole her purse. She thought the arrest meant she and her husband would get back more than $600 in gift cards that friends and family gave the couple for their wedding in July 2014.

But eight months after the thief was sentenced, Divine learned the police department had destroyed the gift cards without telling her, leaving her with no way to get the bulk of her wedding presents back.

“It’s frustrating because not only are you a victim of someone bashing in your car and stealing your stuff, but they don’t return your stuff,” she said.

Police department policy is to destroy evidence in identity theft cases, said police spokeswoman Officer Teresa Fuller.

“It’s for the protection of the identity theft victims,” she said.

In most cases, victims already have closed accounts associated with stolen cards, Fuller said. It can also be tricky to sort out what belongs to whom, since many thieves target multiple people.

In Divine’s case, Fuller said the woman convicted of the thefts, Jorden Mayo, used stolen credit cards from Divine and other victims to buy other gift cards.

“We wouldn’t be able to tell if they were theirs or someone else’s,” she said of the cards.

The news that their gift cards had been destroyed upset Divine and her husband, Mark McAtee – particularly because they’d been happy with the police response until then.

Divine, in fact, was so impressed police took an interest in her stolen purse that she shared her story with local TV news stations.

“It just really restores your faith in the police department,” Divine told KXLY in an Oct. 28 story, just after Mayo was arrested.

Divine sent the arresting officer a list of the cards that had been in her wallet when it was taken, and he sent her a picture of the gift cards he recovered, which were found with her checks and photo ID. She said she was told to wait until the case was closed to get her items back, so she started calling the department in January after Mayo pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 days in jail with credit for time served.

That’s when things started to go downhill.

“I was just given the runaround,” she said. When she called asking when she could pick up her cards, the property department referred her to a lieutenant who didn’t return her messages. Divine estimated she made 30 phone calls to the department from January to August and never heard back.

“This went on for months, and I was never told that this evidence was destroyed,” she said.

Fuller said she wasn’t aware of the specifics of Divine’s communication with the police department.

Divine finally learned her evidence had been destroyed when she contacted a victim advocate with the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office. She said she’s frustrated by the blanket policy of destroying all evidence in identify theft cases, as well as the lack of communication from police.

“I don’t know why they didn’t tell me that in the very beginning. I’ve been calling and emailing trying to get my property back,” she said.

Fuller said victims in cases like this should be able to get money back for stolen gift cards if they kept activation slips or numbers. Divine and her husband don’t have those numbers because the cards were gifts.

Mayo has been ordered to pay $5,553 in restitution in the case, but that money hasn’t started coming in yet.

“We haven’t received anything,” McAtee said.