ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A man and a woman are facing more than 1,500 charges between them following a police chase on I-4 that eventually resulted in the discovery of sensitive information police say was stolen by the suspects.
Melyssa Dray, 38, faces 621 criminal counts that include the possession of stolen credit cards and the fraudulent use of personal identification of another person without their consent.
Tristan Dixon, 27, faces 930 counts that include identity theft and credit card theft. He also faces additional charges of fleeing and eluding police and hit and run.
Investigators alleged that a Florida Highway Patrol trooper attempted to pull over the car carrying Dixon and Dray for speeding on Tuesday.
When Dixon, who was driving, failed to yield to the traffic stop, a chase ensued.
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A criminal complaint for Dixon claimed that the car weaved in and out of traffic and reached speeds of up to 100 mph before getting off the interstate and colliding with three other vehicles.
After deploying a PIT maneuver and compelling the car to stop, investigators said Dixon and Dray both tried to run away.
Once apprehended, investigators said, troopers probed the inside of the car, finding “around 200 copies of hotel receipts...containing names, date of births, copies of credit cards with numbers and expiration dates belonging to the victims of the receipts.”
The criminal complaints for both defendants claimed there were also two books of handwritten social security numbers, names, expiration dates, and credit card numbers.
The discovery led the trooper writing the affidavit to conclude one of the suspects “most likely works at one of these hotels and is making copies of all the credit cards on file and stealing them for fraudulent use.”
News 6 was not able to determine whether Dixon or Dray worked for a hotel at the time of their arrests, but both suspects have been implicated in fraud-related crimes before.
Dixon was accused last year of using a fraudulent identification at an Osceola County property rented through Booking.com. Dray was charged in 2023 with trying to use stolen credit cards at a hotel in Kissimmee.
When News 6 visited the address listed on Dray’s affidavit, a man identifying himself as her brother said he had not previously heard about charges, but claimed that his sister had stolen his sensitive information for her own use.
