Father Accused Of Using 8-Year-Old Daughter In Cookie Crimes

ELK GROVE (CBS13) -- Police say a man and his 8-year-old daughter were going door to door to con their neighbors out of cash, but it's the action one fed-up family took that landed the alleged cookie con in cuffs.

When Kevin Cole knocked on the Philp's door Sunday, his 8-year-old daughter in tow, he had no idea the family inside was ready for him.

"We did actually have a plan thanks to my wife, Vicky," Ken Philp tells CBS13's Checkey Beckford. "If they were gonna come, we were gonna do everything we could to keep 'em here while the police came."

The Philp's had read on an Elk Grove community blog all about how Cole was allegedly going door to door with his young daughter claiming to sell cookies for her cheerleading program.

"When she said, 'That's them,' I handed her my phone and followed them outside to talk about the cookies," Ken says.

Ken kept the duo talking for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, his son snapped pictures of the suspect and his SUV. And inside, Vicky was on the phone with police.

"A family takedown," Ken's son says. "We all had different roles we were doing just to get him off the streets."

When police arrived, so did four other neighbors who said they had just given Cole $80 dollars.

Hank Kountz was one of them.

"She was just so cute, I couldn't resist," he says.

Neighbors say it was clear that the little girl had been well-coached by her father.

"She was not standing there as a prop. Without a shadow of a doubt, she had been trained to know exactly what to say and when to say it," Ken says.

Police now following the cookie trail say dozens of people may have been duped dating all the way back to April.

And not just people. A local cookie store was also affected after Cole allegedly told victims the cookies would be coming from there.

"When we called them they'd been getting inundated with phone calls from people asking where their cookies were," Ken says.

But neighbors say most of their sympathy goes to this little girl allegedly forced into this role of deception by her own father.

"I think it's despicable," Ken says. "Honestly when you think that he drug this child into this. She didn't ask for this.

"She's 8 years old."