Paycheck scam scars many
Enlarge ImageChrystina Dooley of North Linden, shown with her three children, cooperated with authorities after she was drawn into a check-cashing scam.
She first met “Black” when he was selling bootleg DVDs from the trunk of his Chevy Impala outside a North Linden check-cashing place.
Chrystina Dooley said she enjoyed talking about movies with the guy, who had a friendly manner.
Then one day, “Black” asked for a favor. He said he couldn’t cash a paycheck because he had lost his ID and he needed the money to take care of his kids.
As a young, single mother raising three children herself, Dooley said she could sympathize and agreed to help him.
“He took my kindness for weakness,” Dooley said. “I got hoodwinked by a very, very smooth con artist.”
Dooley, 26, of North Linden, was arrested and charged with forgery and possession of criminal tools; she had been caught cashing a counterfeit payroll check.
According to investigators, Maurice Parker, the man whom Dooley knew as “Black,” is responsible for ruining scores of lives by having people cash counterfeit checks for him.
A statewide task force that specializes in fraud cases spent months investigating Parker. He was indicted on 15 counts. But investigators were disappointed when the Franklin County prosecutor’s office agreed to a deal this summer that allowed Parker to plead guilty to three forgery charges.
Parker, 35, of the University District, was placed on probation for three years. He also was told to pay $1,442 in restitution to Kroger, which he has yet to pay, and find a job. He did no jail time.
The plea deal was made because one of the witnesses didn’t show up for trial and another changed his story, said Christy McCreary, spokeswoman for the county prosecutor’s office.
Parker didn’t return a message seeking comment. Gerald Simmons, Parker’s attorney, also wouldn’t discuss the case.
“The biggest damage to the community is not a monetary loss,” said Westerville police detective Ted Smith. “It’s that a lot of people are left with felony convictions that leave them unemployable.”
Smith said Parker lured financially desperate people — young, single mothers were a typical target — in poorer neighborhoods to cash the counterfeit checks for him in exchange for $80 to $125 per check. Police call those people “runners.”
“When I interview these runners, the one common thing I have found is, they didn’t do it for a fistful of money. They did it for need,” Smith said. “I feel really bad for these people. At that point in their life, they make a poor decision, and it’s with them for the rest of their life.”
Columbus police detective Charles Currier, who worked with Smith on the task force, said he also finds that people who cash counterfeit checks “know they shouldn’t have done that, but they’re victims, too.”
Toni Cox, 46, a North Side resident, has spent 15 years in and out of prison for her involvement in various bogus check-cashing schemes, including other cases that Smith has investigated. Cox said she started doing it when she was 19, in part because she was a pregnant high-school dropout who was on her own.
Cox said she regrets her choices. “The consequences are phenomenal,” she said. “Once you get a felony, you can forget about getting a job.”
Many times, runners are told that it is a misdemeanor offense if the check they are cashing is for less than $500. But that’s not true, Smith said. As soon as a person cashes a counterfeit payroll check, he or she can face a forgery charge — a felony — no matter the amount of the check.
Smith said the scheme with Parker worked this way: Parker would get a copy of a real payroll check, sometimes by buying one. Parker also was skilled at creating realistic-looking payroll checks on a computer, Smith said.
Parker then would find someone who would agree to cash the check. Sometimes, Parker would troll for help at a homeless shelter. Or he’d search neighborhoods for people hanging out on the street.
Runners would give Parker their identification, and he would return with that person’s name on the check. Then, Parker would take the person to cash the check.
However, Dooley said she didn’t know until she was arrested that she was cashing a phony check. And, unlike other runners, she wasn’t paid.
She said she cashed the check at a West Side Kroger as Parker waited outside in a car. Dooley said she was surprised to see her name on the payroll check, but Parker assured her it was OK because he had arranged for the company to do that. Dooley cashed the check and brought the $479.20 out to Parker.
Then Parker said he had a second check for the same amount. They drove to another West Side Kroger. But when Dooley tried to cash that check, she was confronted by store security and arrested.
Smith said that if Dooley had cashed the second counterfeit check, Parker likely would have paid her. He said Dooley’s case followed the pattern: “There was a need, Maurice exploited that need, and she fell victim to him.”
Dooley cooperated with investigators, Smith said, and she was allowed to enter a diversion program to have her felony charges dismissed. She attended Parker’s sentencing and remembers that, when their eyes met, Parker bowed his head. She said he did admit during the hearing that he had wronged her.
“I felt like he should have got some years, some deep years,” Dooley said.
But Dooley has moved on. She said she knows her situation could have been much worse if she had been convicted.“It would have killed everything I stood for,” Dooley said.
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