Full Notification

In the past few days, a person representing themselves as Lieutenant Vance Berry of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has been telephoning Sonoma County residents stating that they had missed their jury summons. The suspect then tells the Sonoma County resident that they have a warrant for their arrest and for them to avoid going to jail they must pay money to void the arrest warrant. The suspect has asked for payment in various ways such as obtaining victims credit card numbers, gift card numbers, and in one case a victim gave the suspect her social security number. According to several victims, the suspect seems to be very creditable and has some of their personal information such as their name, address, date of birth and phone number.

In just the past three days there have been about twenty incident reports made between Windsor Police Department and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office regarding this particular scam. The Windsor Police Department and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office would like to warn residents of Sonoma County to be aware of this particular scam so they don’t become a victim. First of all, there is no such person named Vance Berry that works for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. Secondly, law enforcement will not call you on the phone to advise you that you have a warrant for your arrest. If you receive such a call, please just hang the phone up on the caller and report the incident to your local law enforcement agency.

Press release prepared by Sgt. Michael Raasch
Windsor Police Dept.
(707) 838-1234