11 People arrested for check scheme www.privateofficer.com

Birmingham AL. Nov. 29, 2007

Eleven people are accused of participating in a bogus check-cashing scam that targeted six banks and caused more than $400,000 in losses, federal authorities announced Wednesday.
Darryl Cook, 47, of Lawrenceville, Ga., and Melvin Glenn Petty, 52, of Birmingham are among the defendants named in an indictment returned by a grand jury in Birmingham. The two men earlier were identified by federal officials as recruiting homeless people and drug addicts to cash counterfeit checks, paying them with crack cocaine for their work.
Cook and Petty are charged with conspiracy, counterfeiting securities (checks) and bank fraud. Cook also is charged with aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors said the men’s scheme, running March to August, involved the use of bogus checks that looked as if they were drawn on real bank accounts belonging to businesses. Each of the checks, authorities said, were made payable to their nine co-defendants, who would cash the checks at different bank branches.
Others charged with bank fraud in the scheme are:
Derrick Elton Everett, 36.
Vera Mae Johnson, 36.
Otis Isaiah Boyd, 69.
Harold Madden, 42.
Lester Renfroe Russell Jr., 45.
Robert Lee Jones, 56.
Raymond William Boykin, II, 40.
Willie James Monroe, 77.
Willie Homes Jr., 71.
“Despite how organized, creative and daring the schemes may be, time after time, participants are caught and prosecuted,” said U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

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