Winterville woman arrested after plotting to capture scammer, holds Uber driver at gunpoint

A Winterville woman who realized she was being set up for a scam is now charged with being a vigilante-like suspect after she armed herself with a gun in an attempt to capture the scammer.

The woman lured the scammer to meeting in a store parking lot, telling him she had the cash he wanted. Then she held at gunpoint a woman who arrived to collect the package, according to an Athens-Clarke police report.

The felony charge against 76-year-old Patricia Ann Reed stems partly from the fact that Georgia no longer has a citizen’s arrest law as it was repealed in 2021 following the Ahmaud Arbery shooting in Brunswick when Arbery was killed during an apparent citizen’s arrest, according to the police report.

Reed was arrested Sept. 15 on charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and possession of a gun during a felony.

She was released from jail the next day on a $2,950 bond.

Scammers stealing from citizens in the Athens area occurs on a near weekly basis, but this is likely the first reported instance in which an intended victim is alleged to have taken matters into their own hands in an effort to capture the con artist. She told police that law enforcement was not cooperating to assist in the capture, so she devised her own plan.

The scam perpetrated against her involved a telephone call from a con artist who pretended to be an official notifying his intended victim that a family member is in jail and that person needs bail money. In this case, Reed told police that the caller said her son’s bail was set at $255,500 and they needed $25,000 in bond money.

Reed called Athens-Clarke police, the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office and her daughter and told them that someone was trying to scam her. Apparently, when she did not receive the assistance she desired, she arranged to meet the con artist about noon at the Lowe’s off Lexington Road and deliver the money, according to the report.

The law enforcement agencies and the woman’s daughter all three advised her not to go to Lowe’s, according to the report.

The scammer told Reed that a woman would arrive at the location to pick up the cash, which he wanted concealed inside a shoe box.

Reed told police she fixed a shoe box as told and filled it with paper and a small amount of money.

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The 45-year-old Athens woman who arrived to collect the shoe box was an Uber driver, who police said was not aware she was being used as a courier in an illegal scam.

After Reed arrived at the parking lot, she was approached by the Uber driver, and police said that is when she exited her car with a pistol and held the driver at gunpoint.

Reed laid her gun down when police arrived and explained she was holding the driver, whom she believed was a participant in the crime, until officers arrived.

Asked why she attempted to catch the scammer, she replied that she knew police were not planning to come to the location, so she did it herself, according to the report.

During this period, the real scam artist deleted his request on the Uber driver’s phone and this action erased where he wanted to the Uber driver to deliver the package, the report states

“I again advised her that this was a job for law enforcement and it was illegal for her to do this and she continued to argue with me over it,” the officer reported.

The officer noted that Reed thought she had the right to carry out a citizen’s arrest.

“Reed acted as a vigilante despite request from law enforcement and her daughter that she not and showed no ounce of remorse for it,” the officer reported.

The report also notes that Reed “wanted to catch them and that she wasn’t going to let them get away with it.”

After she was told of her imminent arrest, she continued to argue with the officer, according to the report. Reed also objected to the fact that police decided not to charge the Uber driver, police said.

Police said that Reed’s action placed the Uber driver in fear of bodily harm or death.

Witnesses at the scene reported that Reed had her finger on the trigger and the officer wrote that this meant “one slight mistake and she would have shot (the woman).”

Reed’s gun and the shoe box were all placed in evidence.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Winterville woman arrested after failed attempt to capture scammer