Woodstock police tracked Rashan Lawhorne for more than a year.
Wednesday morning, when officers knocked on the door of his Cherokee County home, Lawhorne — charged in an elaborate online scam involving airline tickets — seemed resigned to his fate, according to police.
"His first words were, 'I've been waiting for you for a year,'" Woodstock police Detective Manny de la Torre told Channel 2 Action News. "So he knew I was coming. That added to the satisfaction."
Through Craiglist.org, Lawhorne advertised ticket vouchers at reduced prices, police said. He then purchased airline tickets allegedly using stolen credit card information.
Travelers would be given a reservation number they would use to print a boarding ticket and then fly with the airline, police said.
All of this was done from his personal computer, de la Torre said.
Woodstock police first learned of the scam from AirTran, which contacted the department in June 2011 to report problems with ticket purchases. De la Torre said Lawhorne, charged with 16 counts of identity fraud and one count of theft of services, pilfered at least $30,000 from April through August, 2011.
In addition to stealing from the airline, hundreds of credit card holders — some as far away as South Dakota — were compromised, police said.
The investigation was led by the Woodstock police assisted by federal law enforcement agencies, the Cherokee County District attorney’s Office, banks, credit card companies and airlines in addition to AirTran.
Lawhorne is being held on $110,000 bond in Cherokee County jail.
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