Another crime linked to club 'Pure'

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A man known to be a transient was charged in the theft of as many as 100 debit cards from a Downtown Austin bar early Sunday, the site one of many that were part of an FBI sting operation on Thursday.

"That is a lot of victims," said Senior Police Officer Veneza Aguinaga. "If you're not sure if you were visiting that pure nightclub around that time and you don't know where your card is -- you think you left it, you misplaced it -- again check with your credit card companies immediately make that police report its better to be safe than sorry."

The suspect, identified as Damian Ysasi, 20, allegedly burglarized Pure, located at 419 E. Sixth St., and is also accused of stealing bottles of alcohol and cash, according to an arrest affidavit.

Ysasi was already in the Travis County Correctional Complex when Austin police tracked him down, because he'd been arrested on a robbery-by-assault charge later on Sunday.

Police found Ysasi on a tip from another transient, Walter Rumpf, who used one of the stolen debit cards at a downtown convenience store on Monday. Rumpf was arrested and told police that he got the debit card and several others from Ysasi, who had bragged about stealing the cards from a downtown bar.

Rumpf identified Ysasi when he was shown a photo of him as the man who gave him the debit card.

There were no signs of forced entry into Pure. Ysasi told police that he climbed up a pole attached to the back of the bar and got into the building through a hole in the vent duct. Ysasi told detectives that he also stashed disc jockey equipment from the bar on the roof of an adjacent business.

He provided police with a drawing of where the equipment was hidden, and they recovered an electronic turntable from under a metal box in the area that Ysasi's drawing directed them to.

Surveillance video from Austin Police Department's downtown crime cameras also captured the alley scene behind Pure, and Ysasi is seen climbing up the back of the bar, according to the arrest affidavit.

"It's priceless -- those HALO cameras are there for this specific reason," said Aguinaga.

Ysasi is being held on $8,000 bond. Burglary of a building is a state jail felony.