Thirteen Richmond
and Rosenberg-area women whose ex-husbands
were behind on child support payments
apparently discovered a unique way
to get back the money they were owed.
Unfortunately,
according to law enforcement sources,
their method appears to have involved
bouncing about $50,000 in checks,
written to the Texas Attorney General’s
office.
Fort Bend County
Sheriff’s deputies began serving warrants
and arresting the women Wednesday,
following sealed indictments charging
each of them with engaging in organized
crime.
Law enforcement
sources say that beginning in September
of 2005, Tonya Jackson, 32, of the
Rosenberg area, hatched a scheme to
secure child support payments that
were owed to her but hadn’t been paid.
She allegedly forged her ex-husband’s
signature on a check bearing an account
number that wasn’t hers.
Jackson apparently
wrote bad checks for child support
payments, “knowing the attorney general’s
office doesn’t verify checks before
sending out child support payments,”
said a law enforcement source familiar
with the case.
Once she’d perfected
the scheme, “Tonya then went on to
represent herself to other custodial
parents as a worker for the Child
Support Division and offered to help
them in receiving child support payments,”
according to sheriff’s report. “Once
they received payment they would give
Tonya half.”
According to sheriff’s
reports, Jackson or others involved
in the scheme opened bank accounts
“for the sole purpose of issuing child
support payments. The temporary checks
issued from accounts with minimum
deposits were later closed due to
issuance of bad checks. Payments were
also issued from accounts that were
closed and/or had insufficient funds
in the account.”
One law enforcement
source said it’s possible to buy blank
checks and software at a Wal-Mart
store that will allow someone to print
sequential checks with a routing number
and account number of the buyer’s
choice.
Jackson and others
involved in the scheme provided the
Attorney General’s Child Support Division
with bogus checks, an account number
identifying the woman owed child support,
an “attorney general” number and a
case number, law enforcement sources
said. The Child Support Division then
issued the women child support checks.
But eventually
the bad checks bounced, which is how
the scheme unraveled. The attorney
general began tracing the bounced
checks back to ex-husbands who’d been
failing to make child support payments.
“The AG would
say, the good news is, we’re really
glad so see you’re finally paying
your child support.” said a source
familiar with the case. “The bad news
is, your check bounced.”
The ex-husbands
then were apparently left in the uncomfortable
position of having to explain that
they still weren’t making child support
payments, but also didn’t write the
bounced checks.
When attorney
general employees saw that about $50,000
in bounced child support checks had
come from the Richmond-Rosenberg area
over the past seven months, “it didn’t
take a rocket scientist to see that
this was all one coordinated deal,”
one law enforcement officer said.
The Texas Attorney
General’s office had no immediate
comment early Thursday afternoon.
Beginning in early
May, sheriff’s investigators began
an investigation into the bad checks,
and uncovered the scheme. The matter
was taken before a Fort Bend County
grand jury, which sheriff’s reports
say returned indictments against 13
women including Jackson. However,
only 12 people were named in a list
of those arrested.
They include:
Tonya Lassela
Jackson, 32; Bonnie Flint, 50; Sonya
Hawkins, 31; Tonya Hawkins, 31; Kasey
Nichole Patterson, 27; Michelle Lung,
32; Tranell Girtman, 34; Equilla Gardner,
23; Debra Hodge, 41; Roslynn Fridia,
28; Rosylin McGrew Batiste, 34; Fontella
Scott; and Colandra Rena Jones, 33.
Police sources
say the women will be jailed unless
they can put up $5,000 bond. Because
of the amount of money involved, the
charge of engaging in organized criminal
activity the women face is a second-degree
felony carrying a potential prison
sentence of two to 20 years, and a
potential fine of $10,000. |