A man and his girlfriend arrested on a wide-ranging credit card theft scheme were sentenced Friday to prison for ripping off at least 16 victims to the tune of $1,000 a piece.
Cortez Benjamin, 48, and his girlfriend Cherie Miller, 35, pleaded guilty in Fulton County to Georgia RICO Act charges and 13 other counts of credit card fraud and theft. Benjamin was sentenced to 10 years to serve five and Miller 10 years to serve four, the rest on probation.
The two were arrested in a motel on Northside Drive in April 2014 for a spree of theft that had started nine months earlier, according to the Fulton County District Attorney's office. The thieves targeted victims in retail stores and restaurants in Buckhead and Midtown, stealing their wallets and purses when they weren't looking, spending the money on clothes, food, gas, electronics and cell phone service.
They were arrested last year when Georgia Tech police recognized them from an Atlanta police alert while they were at the campus Barnes and Noble.
Miller had three stolen credit cards in her pants at them time and two customers in the store at the time reported their wallet and cellphone had just been stolen, Channel 2 Action News reported at the time.
Police found a shoebox of credit cards at their motel room.
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