Authorities arrested a 29-year-old man who allegedly spray painted gang-related graffiti on the wall of a local business and trash dumpster in Fillmore, causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.
Deputies responded to the area in the 700 block of Ventura Street around 6:45 p.m. on June 13 after receiving a call from a witness that someone had vandalized a local business’s wall and a trash dumpster with gang-related graffiti, according to a news release from the Sheriff’s Office.
An investigation into the incident led detectives to identify the suspect as Leonardo Morales, a Fillmore resident who was a “known probationer,” authorities stated.
On Friday morning, Ventura County Sheriff’s detectives arrested Morales at his residence on Old Telegraph Road after conducting a probationary search of his home and finding items implicating him in the vandalism, officials said.
Morales was taken into custody and booked at the Ventura County jail on suspicion of graffiti vandalism and participating in a criminal street gang. His bail was set at $100,000.