PORT ORANGE, Fla. – The call to police started as a theft investigation, but was actually the case of a stolen debit card used four times without the owner’s permission.
The victim said “he lost his debit card” at a liquor store in Florida back on Aug. 29, but didn’t realize the card was missing until Sept. 4, “after multiple fraudulent charges were made.”
That’s when he got the police involved. From there, it took time to put the pieces together and even more time to make an arrest.
“[The victim] canceled his card immediately,” the non-arrest affidavit said. Then, he went to the liquor store where he was told “a regular, ‘Bobby Joe,’ was the one who used the card.”
That’s where he learned his “card was used at [the liquor store] three times, for a total of $70.04. The card was also used at [a convenience store] for approximately $57.”
The victim was “unable to provide bank statements” to show authorities what happened. The charges did “not show on his account, due to making a claim.”
He was able to give police “a picture of the subject from the theft.” The affidavit said she’s a woman “with a tattoo across her chest, left tricep, right forearm, [and] right back forearm. She is believed to be BillieJo Kokinos.”
The liquor store where the three purchases were made “provided three receipts that use the stolen card number” the affidavit said. “An employee stated he did not know the female’s name; however, she is a regular and hangs out behind the building.”
Then, the officer wrote, “[The convenience store] allowed me to watch their video footage, which shows the same subject entering the store at approximately 10:33 p.m. The subjects [sic] can be seen picking up a case of Bud Light. She is seen exiting the store at approximately 10:43 p.m.”
At this point, the officer noted she became familiar with Kokinos to some degree while on the job, a few days earlier.
“On 08/31/24,” she wrote, “I was conducting a disturbance investigation. I was in contact with [a woman] who advised her friend, BillieJo, witnessed the disturbance. [The woman] further advised BillieJo left because she stole someone’s credit card and maxed it out. [The woman] advised she had never seen this card.”
Then came the job of finding Kokinos. The officer went to two addresses without any luck.
Then, on Sept. 18, the officer went to another home, where a woman “stated she was willing to help identify a subject in this case.
“[The woman] was shown a picture of the subject in [the liquor store]. [The woman] identified the subject as BillieJo Kokinos, her fiancé’s wife.
“When asked how sure she was of the identification, she stated, ‘I’m a million percent sure.’”
The non-arrest affidavit was filed and Kokinos was supposed to face two criminal charges: possessing the ID of another person without consent, which is a felony, and larceny of a credit card, a misdemeanor.
Before Kokinos was caught, prosecutors decided not to follow through on the misdemeanor, but they kept the felony.
Kokinos had more than her share of theft convictions over the years, plus others involving driving and drugs.
The officer who arrested her in September 2023 wrote, “BillieJo immediately advised she stopped at the stop sign and I did not have a reason to pull her over.” Then, “She advised she was not carrying” her driver’s license. Eventually, “BillieJo stated the narcotics weren’t hers, and that she picked them up off the ground so a child would not ingest or use them.” She ended up pleading no contest to possession of a Schedule II substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving with a suspended license.
In May 2020, she stole a pair of $14.96 sunglasses from Walmart. She “denied taking the sunglasses and said ‘those are mine.’” But that’s not what she told the judge; she pleaded no contest.
In December 2015, she tried to steal a Venus razor — and more — from Walmart, but an employee “attempted to retrieve the store merchandise by grabbing the blue and white purse Kokinos held in her hand. Kokinos then shoved [the employee] backward with both hands and ripped her bag away from [the employee], which caused Kokinos to spill the contents of her purse on the store floor. [They] continued to struggle” until Kokinos ran away, “leaving the purse behind.”
Her ID was in the purse, along with an unlucky 13 recovered stolen items, including some for Christmas. Authorities said at the time, Kokinos had “at least four prior convictions for petit theft at Walmart” and she’d been banned from the store. She ended up pleading no contest to petit theft, resisting a merchant, battery, and trespassing.
The next year, she had been found to violate her probation by failing to submit to random urinalysis, filling to pay the cost of supervision, and failing to obtain a substance abuse evaluation.
At Walmart in February 2014, she concealed “numerous shirts” in her purse but was successfully stopped. The arrest report said she wanted “to buy tape for a project at home. BillieJo claimed she did not come to Walmart with the intentions of shoplifting; however, she saw the shirts and remembered that her daughter needed them.” The six shirts were worth a total of $23.64, and the arrest report said, “Due to BillieJo being a repeat offender at Walmart, they decided to prosecute despite the dollar amount being below $25.” She pleaded no contest. No word if she got the tape or finished her project.
In November 2013, the victim was Home Depot. Kokinos was pulled over with both her driver and passenger side mirrors broken, and a recently suspended driver’s license. According to the arrest report, her passenger said, “They were at the Home Depot because Kokinos stated they were running low on gas, and needed a place to stop so she could call someone to get gas money.” Instead, she was found with two pairs of garden shears worth $57.94, still in their packaging, and she pleaded no contest to driving with a suspended license, and petit theft.
This time, two months passed as a wanted woman with the debit card. In that time, authorities got an arrest warrant.
Finally, on Nov. 18, an officer on routine patrol overnight found Kokinos “picking through trash on the side of the road.”
The officer ran her name and “was notified of an active Volusia County felony warrant.” The warrant was 10 days old and came with a bond of $5,000.
Kokinos, 49, was arrested, and she has been in jail ever since.
Left unmentioned is how she used the card where she was known, and whether she knew the card’s PIN.
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