22-05-2025
Fontana woman fights off suspect posing as water inspector
While she may walk with a cane, Sammie Holguin is the wrong 75-year-old woman to mess with, as one would-be robber recently learned.
"He pushed on the side of my head, but I was dancing with him," Hoguin said. "I think he was pretty surprised."
She was also surprised after she let a thief, who convincingly dressed as an inspector, into her Fontana home to check her water line. After realizing he had no business in her home, Holguin ordered the man downstairs while holding her cane.
"He turned around and I saw my pink wallet in his back pocket," she said. "I grabbed him and pushed him into the door jam of the bathroom, grabbed my wallet and shoved it down my pants. It went all the way to my knees and started tussling with him."
Holguin said she ran down the street after the man but ended up calling police when he got away.
"By the time detectives located him, he was talking to another senior citizen in the Los Angeles area, apparently trying to pull the same scam," said Fontana Police Department officer Steve Reed.
Reed said detectives arrested 52-year-old Rocky Marks on several felony counts, including robbery, burglary, elder abuse and theft from an elder. Investigators said he had many different aliases and several work uniforms. They believe he had been running the scam on elderly people for decades.
"He's been arrested for similar crimes in different states over the past 20 years," Reed said.
Police discovered Marks ran the inspector scam on another woman in Fontana last month. He allegedly stole jewelry after entering her home. They believe there might be more victims scattered across Southern California.
"A lot of seniors get victimized and they become embarrassed," Reed said. "They don't want to tell their kids what happened."
While Holguin is glad Marks is behind bars, she's still itching to get another piece of him.
"If I had $1 million, I'd bail him out and wail on him," she said. "I would. It made me mad."
