Lompoc police apprehend alleged serial shoplifter of Ulta merch worth $150,000-plus

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Suspected of multiple thefts at Ulta Beauty branches across the country, Jennifer Hurtado was recently arrested in Lompoc for allegedly stealing more than $7,000 worth of cosmetics from three different Central Coast stores.

According to a July 10 statement from the Lompoc Police Department, Ulta Beauty management told local authorities that Hurtado is linked to shoplifting incidents in various cities and states that total to approximately $152,000 in company losses.

Lompoc police pulled over the 29-year-old Van Nuys resident a few blocks away from the city’s Ulta Beauty shop on July 10 around 6 p.m., shortly after local employees phoned law enforcement.

“Store management called the LPD while Hurtado was leaving the store and provided officers with the description and license plate of the vehicle she was driving,” Sgt. Scott Morgan wrote in a release about Hurtado’s arrest. “As officers were arriving, they witnessed the vehicle and conducted an enforcement stop.”

Officers found Hurtado in possession of more than $1,600 worth of Ulta products from the Lompoc location, as well as merchandise “she had stolen earlier in the day from the Goleta and Oxnard Ulta Beauty stores,” Morgan stated.

Lompoc officers seized approximately $7,600 worth of goods during Hurtado’s arrest, according to the release.

After Hurtado was transported to the Lompoc Police Department Jail, she confessed to “multiple thefts across Ultas in different counties and even states,” Morgan told the Sun.

“There’s going to be some further investigation as to how to handle the actual prosecution of that,” Morgan said. “There’s going to need to be follow-up in order to coordinate with each [police] department and the respective district attorneys in each of these counties.”

Since Lompoc’s Ulta opened in 2018, Morgan said that the Lompoc Police Department has arrested some individuals suspected of shoplifting there, but never “anyone of this magnitude.”

The next step for local investigators, Ulta Beauty’s team of internal investigators and loss prevention officers, and other agencies connected to the case is tying “it all together,” said Morgan, who’s been with the Lompoc Police Department for 21 years.

“We want to get thorough details of how many stores she’s been involved with, and to get surveillance from each of these stores, and then how much product she’s actually stolen, to get an accurate amount,” Morgan said. “We have a detective that’s doing a lot of follow-up right now.”

In December 2023, CBS reported that a 27-year-old resident of Woodhaven, New York, named Jennifer Hurtado was arrested in Shelby County, Alabama, and charged with first-degree theft of more than $2,500 worth of Ulta merch.

“Oftentimes the people that are doing these thefts are not from the area. … We suspect they are part of a larger theft ring, which we believe [Hurtado] is as well,” Morgan told the Sun. “[When] they’re part of a ring, they may be taking [stolen products] to Los Angeles or San Francisco, or out of the area.”

In 2024, the Lompoc Police Department issued a handful of announcements that asked the public to help officers identify individuals suspected of shoplifting from the city’s Ulta location.

One release in April 2024 included photos via store surveillance of three suspects who allegedly left the Lompoc shop “after walking through the store for less than five minutes” with more than $4,500 in unpaid goods.

About a year later during Lompoc’s State of the City hearing on April 24, Lompoc Police Chief Kevin Martin said that crime statistics showed a 21 percent decrease in property crimes (including robbery and burglary) in Lompoc between 2023 and 2024, from 581 crimes to 459.

“Santa Barbara PD and Santa Maria PD [robbery stats] both are higher than us. Now, I don’t show these stats in any way to take away or throw mud at my partner agencies,” Martin said at the meeting. “But if there’s anything you take away from my presentation today, I want it to be this, … people’s perception of our community is so wrong.” 

This article appears in Jul 17-27, 2025.