Feds get first conviction in check-cashing scam
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A Georgia man who joined a conspiracy to use homeless people to cash fake checks pleaded guilty today, and prosecutors described him as part of a nationwide conspiracy to use the down-and-out to defraud the companies.
Cordarell J. Pearson, 24, told U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti that he was part of the conspiracy for just a few days in early October and didn't know about any national network. He is the first of four people charged in the scheme to plead guilty.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory C. Melucci said that from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6, the group cashed 61 fraudulent checks worth $130,618.
They stole business checks from industrial park mailboxes. They then found homeless people, bought them clothes, and sometimes put them up briefly in Monroeville-area hotels.
They drove the homeless people to banks and had them claim to be employees of the companies and cash the checks. The homeless people got a cut of the take.
Many of the checks were the property of companies Oxford Development, Fleet Depot and Marketplace Direct.
Bank fraud investigators noticed the string of checks and alerted the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Secret Service. The conspirators were then caught in a car awash in $100 bills, Mr. Melucci said.
"The majority of that stuff, I had no doing in it," Mr. Pearson said, adding later, "I did commit those crimes."
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make and utter counterfeit securities.
He will be sentenced June 26, and the maximum term is five years.
Mr. Melucci said the investigation continues and includes other regions of the country.
First Published February 22, 2012 12:31 pm
