By Tia Lyons
An El Dorado woman was taken into custody Wednesday on a warrant in connection to a theft that was reported by a local retailer last month and resulted in the wrongful arrest of a woman with a similar name.
Cynthia M. Daniells, 47, of 3516 Anya Dr., Lot 11, was arrested Wednesday on a misdemeanor warrant for theft of property for her alleged role in the theft of $1,000 worth of merchandise from T.J. Maxx, 1835 N. West Ave.
While investigating the theft, which was reported on May 5, El Dorado police erroneously arrested another El Dorado woman, 39-year-old Cynthia M. Daniel, weeks later.
Officers learned they had made an error based on information they said they received as part of the investigation, and they released Daniel — whose middle name, “Marie,” is the same as Daniells’s – from the Union County Jail the following day.
Daniells’s last name is also sometimes spelled with a single “L” in El Dorado Police Department records.
A warrant was subsequently issued for Daniells, and on Tuesday, she was taken into custody without incident at her residence, police said.
Daniells was also arrested on warrants for three misdemeanor accounts of violation of the Arkansas Hot Check Law.
Capt. Kevin Holt, public information officer for the EPD, said officers “doubled and triple checked information” before issuing the warrant for Daniells on Tuesday.
Holt said the EPD regrets the error it made with Daniel’s arrest last month.
Holt acknowledged that such mistakes have occurred periodically over the years, and he said the EPD is working to prevent them from happening again in the future.
When taking Daniells into custody, officers used her driver’s license to confirm her identity and matched a portion of her
Social Security number to the SSN that appeared on the arrest warrant, in addition to other methods that are used to identify suspects during arrests
“We went well beyond what we normally would,” Holt said.
He said the EPD typically retains 700 to 800 arrest warrants on file and are prepared to serve them at all times. He said a stack of approximately 150 new warrants landed on his desk Wednesday.
“It’s a daunting task to keep up with. That’s certainly no excuse for the error we made with Miss Daniel, but there will be errors at times, and we try to do everything possible to prevent those errors,” Holt said.
Daniells was an employee of T.J. Maxx when she allegedly committed the theft. She is scheduled to appear in 35th Judicial District Court on July 13
Two other women, also former employees of T.J. Maxx, were arrested on May 25, each on a felony charge of theft of property as co-conspirators in the theft.