A Milwaukee woman who was jailed for allegedly ripping off a series of men she met in Chicago nightclubs was set free last spring when COVID concerns prompted authorities to clear thousands of detainees out of Cook County jail.
But COVID must not have been too big of a concern for Davisha Traylor because prosecutors say the 32-year-old left Milwaukee, went to Rivers Casino, picked up a man at the bar, and went to his home, where she burglarized the place after he apparently passed out from being drugged.
Not surprisingly, police found connections between Davisha Traylor and Tiana Trammell, a Milwaukee woman suspected of drugging and robbing at least ten men she met in Chicago bars.
When prosecutors filed the latest charges against Traylor this week, they said she has five pending felony cases. According to court records, the pending allegations include multiple counts of identity theft, operating a continuing financial crimes enterprise, theft, use of fraudulent credit cards, wire fraud, and more.
She’s accused of stealing and using the credit cards of men she met at bars in River North, Old Town, and elsewhere in 2018 and 2020, record show. The alleged victims include tourists from Texas and California and residents of Uptown and the Gold Coast.
A judge released her on her own recognizance in four of those in 2018. While she was out, she got picked up on another ID theft case and was held in lieu of $5,000 bail.
She remained in jail until last April when a judge let her out on her own recognizance due to concerns about the potential for COVID exposure in jail, records show.
Just six months later, apparently unconcerned about contracting COVID, Traylor allegedly traveled to Rivers Casino in Des Plaines on October 17 with a small group of women. Prosecutors say she even scanned her driver’s license to access the surveillance camera-filled casino at 2:03 a.m.
Once inside, she bellied up next to a 26-year-old Lincoln Park man as he sat at Lotus Bar, according to prosecutors and a CPD report.
She agreed to meet the man at his home in the 2600 block of North Racine and then rode to his house in a red Jaguar bearing Wisconsin plates that was occupied by other women, police said.
The alleged victim told police he doesn’t know what happened after he walked Traylor into his home because he thinks he was knocked out by some kind of drug. When he woke up, his iPhone and credit cards were missing, and someone had been using his Uber account to ride around.
Surveillance video shows Traylor entering the man’s home, prosecutors said, and no one else went inside between the time he arrived and the time he noticed his things missing.
Police also found surveillance video of Traylor racking up $1,661 in charges on the man’s credit cards at a Milwaukee-area Walmart and other stores, prosecutors said. The alleged victim identified her in a photo line-up.
On the night after the alleged Rivers Casino incident, Chicago police were investigating a series of similar crimes that had been reported in the River North neighborhood.
Detectives who were maintaining surveillance on Tiana Trammell, a suspect in the downtown incidents, saw the same red Jaguar with Wisconsin plates that Traylor rode from the casino to Lincoln Park circling the area, according to a CPD report.
Cops arrested Trammell, 25, and Tjwana Rainey, 32, later that evening after they drugged a man in a downtown bar and literally carried him to their nearby car where he was robbed, prosecutors said during an October bond court appearance.
Trammell is accused of participating in at least ten similar robberies in the city last year to gain at least $85,000 in stolen valuables and credit card purchases at Milwaukee-area Walmart stores and other retailers.
This week, prosecutors charged Traylor, who’s also known as Davisha Bridges, with felony identity theft in connection with the casino incident.
Her defense attorney told Judge David Navarro that she works part-time as a bartender in Milwaukee. Navarro ordered her held without bail for violating the terms of bond in two of her pending cases. He set bail in the new matter at $5,000.