AUSTINTOWN Shopper will face stolen-check charges

AUSTINTOWN -- A Youngstown woman was arrested late Thursday at the Ames store on Mahoning Avenue after she tried to make a $109.52 purchase with a stolen check.
The woman, 34, of Alameda Avenue, Youngstown, was charged by police with theft, forgery and receiving stolen property. A manager for Ames contacted police at 10:30 p.m. after he had tried to verify the purchase by calling the phone number on the check.
The person who answered the phone said the checks had been in a purse that was stolen the morning of Dec. 14 from Youngstown State University's Kilcawley Center.
The purse also contained a credit card, a CD player, $15 and a Bulgarian passport.
Austintown police said that earlier Thursday the Alameda Avenue woman purchased a television from the store using a stolen check for $74.19. Two men left the store with the television, which has not been recovered.
YSU police also said that a woman tried to buy a drill Tuesday from the Lowe's store on Doral Drive in Boardman using one of the stolen checks. Police are working to determine if it was the Alameda Avenue woman.
Stow police also are investigating a connection between the stolen purse and the arrests of two men, one of Hallock Young Road, Warren, and one of Madison Avenue, Youngstown, after a car accident in Stow.
The Youngstown man, a YSU freshman studying criminal justice, was wanted in Mahoning County on a felony warrant for an unrelated robbery. The report didn't indicate why the second man was arrested.