Montgomery County police arrested two men who they said were targeting elderly victims in a car repair scam in which they would damage the vehicle while trying to make it look like they had fixed it.
Cory A. Jace and John Mitchell, both 22, are accused of offering to repair body damage to vehicles and then using spray paints and other tools to make it look like the problem was fixed, when they had actually further damaged the vehicles. Police said they observed the two men in the Georgetown Square Shopping Center in Bethesda tell a 75-year-old man they’d fix his front bumper for $375. When the man went into the grocery store, police said the men tried to spray paint the car’s headlight and used belts to bend the vehicle’s hood latch mechanism.
Both men had out-of-state driver’s licenses. Police believe they used similar scams involving driveway resurfacing, tree pruning and roof repair.
– Scott McCabe
