The Oregon Jamboree received a call reporting the theft of wristbands valued at $8,096.80, June 25, and received multiple statements via social media alleging similar incidents
According to Katie Schrock, the marketing director for the Oregon Jamboree, a patron called the Oregon Jamboree office to alert that someone had called the patron demanding payment in exchange for her wristband package to be given to her, June 25. This was the first time the Oregon Jamboree heard of any wristbands going missing.
“Our first priority was to ensure that the stolen bands were inactivated, and that new ticket packages were fulfilled and immediately mailed to the impacted patrons at no cost to them,” Schrock said. “Thanks to our due diligence and order of operations within our fulfillment team, we were able to verify that 12 total orders, out of the thousands of orders we mailed, had not been scanned at the US Post Office.”
Schrock stated they then discussed with the US Post Office to try and determine where the packages had gone missing. That same day, they called the Sweet Home Police Department (SHPD) to report the bracelets as stolen.
“We are grateful that the response from the SHPD was immediate; they were able to use the contacts we had from the thieves’ phone call, and the social media messages, to track down more than half of the orders,” Schrock stated. “This detective work led to the first arrest, about a week before the festival began.”
This arrest was made on July 31 at 2:31 a.m.; William Henry King Jr, 45, was arrested for first degree theft and second degree criminal trespass and was lodged at the Linn County Jail. According to court documents, it’s alleged that King unlawfully and knowingly committed theft of property, valued $1,000 or more, belonging to the Oregon Jamboree.
The Oregon Jamboree then canceled and re-created all the missing orders and re-sent them. Due to some of the packages not being recoverable, the Oregon Jamboree flagged the stolen orders. Thanks to Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID) the team was able to keep eyes on the stolen wristbands if they were to come through the gate. The intention was to trade the inactive bands for new bands, and invite the person to speak with the detectives.
The Oregon Jamboree stated they will continue to use the RFID technology and the tools that allowed them to track and cancel or replace bands to protect their patrons going forward.
“We are grateful that, with this new information and our team’s ability to track the wristbands, two arrests were made,” Schrock said. The Oregon Jamboree is extremely thankful to the SHPD for a professional investigation and we are grateful we were able to quickly and efficiently remedy this situation for the small number of impacted patrons.”
The most recent arrest was made Aug. 13 at 9:24 p.m.; Thomas Ray Pimentel, 26, was arrested for first degree theft and unlawful possession of methamphetamine and was lodged at the Linn County Jail. According to court documents, it is alleged that Pimentel unlawfully and knowingly committed the theft of tickets by buying, selling, borrowing on the security of, or lending on the security of the property, knowing that the property was the subject of theft.
This investigation is still on-going. Anyone with information is asked to contact officer Trevor Sundquist at [email protected] or at 541.367.5181.