CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A man arrested earlier this year for a series of thefts has been arrested again in a similar case.
Richard William O’Keefe Jr., 32, a transient whose booking sheet lists him as being from Clearlake Oaks, was arrested on Monday afternoon.
In February, the Clearlake Police Department began investigating a series of thefts involving an unidentified adult male subject who would use a ruse to gain entry into the homes of his victims and, once inside, would steal property before fleeing, as Lake County News has reported.
Sgt. Rodd Joseph said that in March the police department began receiving several crime tips identifying O'Keefe as the suspect in the thefts.
O'Keefe was arrested on March 12, but it was on charges unrelated to the February thefts, Joseph said.
Instead, the theft cases in which O’Keefe had been identified as the suspect were forwarded to the Lake County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution, Joseph said.
On July 28, the Clearlake Police Department began another investigation into a case in which a male suspect claiming to be “John Anderson” entered a woman’s home under a ruse, asked for a glass of ice water and stole property from the woman’s purse when she left the room to retrieve the water, Joseph said.
Joseph said Officer Travis Parson investigated the case and was able to determine that the suspect was O’Keefe, but O’Keefe could not be located due to his transient nature.
On Monday, Parson was at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport for testimony in an unrelated criminal matter when he saw O’Keefe in the courthouse and arrested him, Joseph said.
Parson transported O’Keefe to the Lake County Jail where O'Keefe was booked on a single count of burglary, with bail set at $35,000, according to jail records.
Though O’Keefe denied involvement in any of the theft cases during questioning, additional evidence was obtained linking O’Keefe to the most recent case, Joseph said.
The Clearlake Police Department reminds residents about the dangers of inviting unknown persons into their homes.