QuickTake:

The defendant, a Romanian national, was working with a partner who will be sentenced in June. In addition to the prison time, she was ordered to pay restitution.

A woman linked to WinCo parking-lot pickpocket thefts was sentenced Tuesday, May 26, to three years in prison.

Rexona Caldararu, 34, was also ordered to pay $64,007.56 in restitution.

Caldararu and co-defendant Lucian Sulitanu each pleaded guilty in separate hearings in U.S. District Court in Portland earlier this year to aggravated identity theft, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Sulitanu’s sentencing is scheduled for June 23.

Their guilty pleas came after allegations in multiple Oregon cities.

An FBI affidavit later removed from the court record alleged that a man in Springfield had $10,000 withdrawn from his account after a woman approached him in the parking lot about dropped money and likely took his debit card.

Plea documents state the pair each admitted to following someone at a WinCo grocery store in Oregon City, watching the person use a debit card to learn their personal identification number, and then stealing the debit card and using it to fraudulently make purchases and withdraw money. 

Court documents stated that one of the pair in store parking lots would “pretend that the victim had dropped money on the ground” and then give the money to the victim “by trying to physically place the money into the victim’s wallet.”

While placing money into the wallet, “the Defendant would steal the victim’s debit card,” the indictment stated. In addition to Caldararu and Sulitanu, the indictment, while redacted, appeared to refer to a third co-conspirator whose name was not disclosed.

A sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors stated Caldararu caused losses to 11 “elderly” victims in Oregon and elsewhere from summer 2023 through summer 2025. 

Prosecutors stated Caldararu had repeatedly been arrested for the “same conduct,” but acknowledged this was her first conviction. Caldararu previously had “criminal convictions in the United Kingdom and France,” according to court documents filed by her attorney, but no details were provided.

A news release from Oregon’s U.S. Attorney’s Office described Caldararu as a Romanian national unlawfully living in the United States.