ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LAKE MONTICELLO
SOURCE: Associated Press
The intruder was persistent if nothing else.
Repeatedly, during a two-week span, someone sneaked into a house under construction in a picturesque area near Charlottesville, but it wasn't clear what was being taken until the homeowner saw his telephone bill.
The visitor had rung up more than $1,000 in charges to phone sex lines, officials say.
Raymond Edward Patterson, 34, of Charlottesville was arrested Sunday night by a Lake Monticello police officer who staked out the nearly completed, unoccupied home.
``It was a textbook case,'' said police Lt. Curtis Crawford. ``Everything fell into place. An officer was hiding when [the intruder] broke in, and he apprehended him before he could get to the phone.''
Crawford said the homeowner at first noticed $250 in phone charges to a sex line on his phone bill. Police then checked with the phone company and learned Monday that an additional $900 in calls had been made, all between 7 p.m. and midnight during the 14-day period.
Patterson was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and grand larceny. He told police he punched in credit card numbers at random, but police said the account number Patterson used matched a credit card belonging to a Lake Monticello resident.
Patterson was in the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange Wednesday. A bond hearing is scheduled Monday in Fluvanna County General District Court.
Sunday's arrest was not Patterson's first unusual scrape with the law.
In January, he and three other people pleaded guilty in Rockingham County Circuit Court to illegally possessing three Siberian tigers and conspiring to sell them.
Patterson got a suspended 18-month jail sentence and was required to pay a $500 fine and serve one year of unsupervised probation.
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