Six arrested for identity theft in bust at Cinco Ranch home

KATY, TX (KTRK) -- Neighbors started their Wednesday morning on Lemonmint Meadow Drive in Cinco Ranch with a bang. Literally. It's a sound they weren't familiar with -- stun grenades.

Neighbor Michael Higginbottom said, "My first thought was terrorism or something. I started thinking drugs, countless things you think about but until you actually know what happened, it's really unsettling."

It was a wake-up call around 6am with stun grenades to move out the people in the home while families were getting ready for work and taking children to school on Lemonmint Meadow Drive. Higginbottom added, "It's really unsettling as a person whose kids go to school here."

Agents swept in, raiding the home, carrying large amounts of evidence out. Some was recognizable, but there were other things witnesses in the neighborhood say they'd never seen, like a pill press. Federal agents say six people were working as a team. Four men and two women are accused of wire fraud, identity theft and theft of public money.

Neighbor Bud Willoughby said, "About 6am we heard two flash bangs, we heard over a loud speaker, 'FBI come out', shouting his name. And we saw probably 20 or 30 FBI swat team agents."

The indictment says they would steal from bank accounts after posing as account holders. Then they created fake accounts and transferred money from victim accounts or home equity lines of credit.

Neighbors want to know what led federal agents to the home, but just the fact they were there was startling enough. "There's things you can control and things you can't control. As a father who has three kids and a wife it is definitely something that causes you to think wow what's going on in this area," said Higginbottom.

James Michael Curtis Johnson, 31, Donald Ray Perry, 26, Enitra Shante Pickett, 28, and D'angela Devonne Domio, 26, all of Houston; Joshua Jacquez Britton, 28, of Richmond; and Joseph Edward Johnson, 44, of Katy, were taken into custody.

The judge set bond for the defendants ranging from $50,000 to no bond at all for the accused ringleader. If convicted on those counts, the prison terms range from 5-20 years each.