Nine charged in fake payroll check scheme
Nine charged in fake payroll check scheme
Mary Jo Denton
Herald-Citizen Staff
COOKEVILLE -- Nine Hispanic males were arrested and a large sum of cash and fake checks and ID's seized in a fast-moving scheme here Friday afternoon, police said.
"We confiscated a total of $6,024 in cash from all nine arrestees," said Cookeville Police Detective Bobby Anderson.
And since then, he has learned that three of the nine arrested are wanted by authorities in other states, he said.
The fake checks were made to look like payroll checks from Perdue Farms, the Monterey food processing plant which employs a large number of Hispanics, who usually cash their checks at week's end, police said.
But not one of the nine arrested actually worked at Perdue, Detective Anderson said. And fake checks matching the fake ones found here had already been cashed at a Monterey business to the tune of $6,854 when the scheme began to unravel as Cookeville businesses were being hit early Friday afternoon.
Police were called to the Cash Express store on W. Spring St. at 1:27 p.m. Friday when a clerk there became suspicious of two Hispanic men "trying to cash a forged check on Perdue Farms," says a report by Officer Donna Revis, the first officer to enter the case.
When Officer Revis showed up at Cash Express, the two suspects took off running.
Police officers chased them and eventually apprehended eight adult men and a juvenile. Some of the suspects were arrested in the area after two traffic stops, and some were found in store parking lots, where at least one allegedly was trying to toss fake checks and ID into a trash can as officers arrived, Detective Anderson said.
At one point, the officers received a report that a Hispanic man was at Spring Street Market trying to cash the same type of check, but that man had gone by the time officers arrived there.
However, store officials found they had already cashed 24 of the phony checks for a total of $10,311, Detective Anderson said.
As officers continued gathering evidence and rounding up suspects, they recovered 27 counterfeit Perdue Farms paychecks which had not been cashed, and which would have netted the suspects $11,635 if they had been cashed, the detective said.
"We also recovered 20 identification cards, some of them Perdue Farms ID cards and others which were state ID cards," Anderson said. "We are still in the process of trying to determine which ones are real and which ones are counterfeit."
He said police are also uncertain of the real identities of the suspects. Warrants on file in the case identify the following who were arrested, all charged with "criminal simulation/forgery":
* Victor Avila, 23, of Old Carriage Drive, Marietta, Georgia.
* Demertio Mejia DeDios, 31, of Macedonia Road, Powder Springs, Tenn.
* Jose Chavez, 23, of Old Carriage Drive, Marietta, Georgia.
* Samuel Fuez, 23, of Scott Drive, Marietta, Georgia.
* Joaquin Doriga, 26, of Old Carriage Dr., Marietta, Georgia.
* Javiar Cruz Lopez, 29, of Marietta, Georgia.
* Anthony Perrera Walker, 30, of Scott Drive, Marietta, Georgia.
* Hector Zabala, 27, of Wanda Circle, Marietta, Georgia.
Detective Anderson said one of those arrested was a 16-year-old boy.
"We believe there are still more offenders out there," Anderson said. "And there may other checks still out there."
He said other Cookeville businesses may have cashed phony checks and not be aware of it yet.
He also stressed that Perdue Farms officials want everyone to know that there are two ways to determine if checks appearing to be from that company are real or not.
"The real check has on the lower right corner a pink padlock, and that padlock responds to warmth and will disappear when rubbed firmly," the detective said.
"The other way to tell is this: if the real check is photocopied using a copy machine, it will display 'void' on the photocopy."
The eight adults arrested were jailed and held without bond pending a court hearing, which was held on Monday. The juvenile was taken to the Putnam Juvenile Detention Center.
At the hearing in General Sessions Court on Monday, Judge John Hudson set a bond of $20,000 for each of the eight adults, but that was later withdrawn as police learned that some of the accused had multiple aliases and were wanted in other states. The case was to come back up in General Sessions on Wednesday.
Judge Hudson appointed lawyers to represent each one. The services of an interpreter were required in court and will be required as the case makes its way through the justice system.
Among the other officers who worked the case were Detectives James Lane and Tim Terry, Ron Franklin, Darrin Stout, Capt. Mark Maxwell, Randy Brown, Lester Langford, and Anthony Leonard.
Published April 12, 2006 11:21 AM CDT
