Young men have been circulating throughout Malibu collecting money in the name of Malibu High School athletics.
By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
Two young men going door-to-door in Malibu pretending to raise funds for student athletic programs may have picked the wrong doors to knock on last week.
Sheriff’s deputies were called when a pair of men, who appeared to be in their late teens to early 20s, and claiming to be soliciting funds for either Malibu High School or a Santa Monica soccer club, knocked on the door of a student newspaper reporter who is writing a school newspaper article about the apparent fraud.
The alleged athletes then went a few doors down, and tried to solicit funds from a house where the Malibu High girls soccer team was meeting and talking about the fraud ring.
“It was such a coincidence. I had just told the girls about these fakes when they knocked at the door,” said soccer coach David Simpson.
Simpson said he challenged the two young men about their claims, and was shown an envelope supposedly full of checks from other West Malibu residents.
“That’s the oldest trick in the game, they show you the checks to make you think your neighbors have given,” Simpson said.
At the reporter’s house, one of the two students engaged the men in conversation while the other called deputies. The students managed to get a picture of the suspects taken on a cellphone, Athletics Director Alfredo Silva said.
The two students are preparing an article for next week’s school paper that will include the photo, but did not want to release it to a competing newspaper, said journalism teacher David Warshawski. However, they did give the photo to deputies.
Silva has fielded a handful of phone calls from people upset with the apparent fraud or rudeness of the men.
“They changed their story a couple of times, either collecting for the school or for a soccer club,” Silva said. “And I got a couple of phone calls from community members who thought these guys had been rude.”
The young men may have gathered several thousand dollars from unsuspecting Malibu residents, Silva said, basing his estimate on phone calls he has received.
“This is very upsetting, that they are using our name and trying to swindle people,” Simpson said.
Deputies were unable to find the suspects.
“That is an arrestable act, if we catch them,” said Sgt. Tim Youngern at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Malibu/Lost Hills Station.
Youngern said residents should call the sheriff’s office at 310.456.6652 if they spot the questionable fundraisers.