FALLON - The owner of Cindy's Travel Unlimited turned herself into the Fallon Police Department on Thursday after being told a warrant had been issued for her arrest.
Cynthia Lea Taylor-Holland, 60, of Fallon is charged with 16 counts of embezzlement, 16 counts of use of a personal identification and two counts fraud of credit.
She was released after posting bail of $167,500.
The charges stem from her business, through which she allegedly double-billed some customers and took payments for tickets that were never purchased.
Deputy District Attorney Lane Mills said the three main charges are embezzlement greater than $2,500, obtaining and using identities of others and credit fraud.
The embezzlement charges carry penalties of one to 10 years in prison on each count, and the sentences would double for any victim who is an elderly person. According to the application for the arrest warrant, many of the alleged victims were more than 60 years old.
Obtaining and using false identities of others carries a sentence up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine, while the fraudulent credit card offenses carry a sentence of one to six years on each count.
Taylor-Holland allegedly received $19,000 in tickets from Blue Sky Travel but never paid for them.
She is also charged with issuing a bad check, which carries a prison sentence of one to four years and a $5,000 fine.
Mills said he thinks there are many more alleged victims who have not come forward yet.
"Anyone that has had dealings with Travel Unlimited needs to check their credit-card statements because they may have been double charged," Mills said.
He said Taylor-Holland would allegedly bill a customer for two tickets, and then sell the extra ticket to a cash-paying customer so she could pocket the money.
Other customers, he said, showed up at the airport only to find out that the tickets they purchased had never been ordered.
A sign on the door of Travel Unlimited asked anyone with concerns with a previous order to contact the Fallon Police Department, adding that Town Square Mall employees did not know the whereabouts of Taylor-Holland.
Mills said the district attorney's office filed a criminal complaint last week with an affidavit for a warrant.
Lt. Frank Shyne of the Fallon Police Department said the first travel agency victim contacted authorities in the first week of September, with the last one coming to police in late October.
In all, 26 different people contacted police about Travel Unlimited in about seven weeks.
"We waited a good period of time," he said, adding some of the vacations planned through the travel agency were time sensitive.
"If someone feels like they have been defrauded by Travel Unlimited, we would like to hear from them," he said.
Taylor-Holland is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 10 in Churchill County Justice Court.
The Fallon Police Department can be contacted at (775) 423-2111.
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