Thursday, September 23, 2004
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- The U.S. Secret Service is expected to take over the prosecution of a city man accused of depositing more than $200,000 in forged checks to Sky Bank.
City police charged Victor Jefferson, 38, of Beech Street with forgery and theft.
Police said a teller at Sky Bank became suspicious when Jefferson withdrew $4,500 from his personal account at the bank. She looked up his account history and noticed he had made several large transactions over the past four months, including a $64,988.17 deposit from First American Title Insurance Co.
The teller told police that checks from the company deposited into Jefferson's account totaled $233,282.32. The teller called the title company and was told the checks had the correct routing number and account number, but were not authorized, police said.
Jefferson was arrested and told police that there were others involved, including a cousin. Police said he allowed them to search his home and they found papers with his cousin's name and bank account information.
Police said Jefferson wired some of the money from the checks to his cousin in Los Angeles.
Police said they also found a FedEx package in the garbage in which Jefferson contends he received a check.