A homeless woman attempted to cash a fraudulent check at a Dickson City bank while two accomplices waited in an SUV across the street, according to a criminal complaint.
According to investigators, at about noon on Oct. 16, Anamarie Thomas, 51,entered First National Bank on Main Street and presented fake identification of another woman, which bore Thomas’ photo.
Thomas attempted to cash a check for $2,500 in the other woman’s name. Bank employees knew the customer named on the identification and immediately contacted police. Responding officers found Thomas in the bank parking lot and detained her. She then alerted Officer John Wilson to an SUV pulling out of the CVS parking lot across the street.
Thomas told Wilson she was working with the driver of the vehicle, later identified as Aaron Davis, 41, of the Bronx, New York. The two, she said, were communicating through Bluetooth.
Thomas said there was a female passenger in the vehicle, later identified as Katherine Dembowski, 54, who had cashed a fraudulent check in Lower Merion Twp. earlier in the day.
Both Thomas and Dembowski were identified as homeless in court papers.
Thomas told police Davis had recruited her at a methadone clinic in Camden, New Jersey.
Officers arrested Thomas, Davis and Dembowski and impounded their vehicle.
Officers said Davis had $5,866 on him at the time of the arrest and was listening to a police scanner as he was being arrested.
During an interview at police headquarters, Thomas told officers Davis had picked her up in Newark, New Jersey, early that morning.
The three then drove to a bank in Lower Merion Twp., where Dembowski fraudulently cashed a check written in another woman’s name.
Thomas told officers Davis took her photo the night before and attached it to an identification card.
Two federal agents, one from the FBI and one from the Treasury Department, came to police headquarters to interview the three suspects.
Davis said that he wanted an attorney, and agents didn’t interview him. Thomas and Dembowksi agreed to speak with the agents.
Dembowski told investigators she had been arrested twice before for similar crimes and both times she had been with Davis.
Further investigation showed that on Sept. 26, the Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center posted that the Spring Twp. Police Department had identified Davis and a different woman as the suspects in the same type of bank fraud.
In that case, the woman told investigators Davis had provided her with identification cards and checks, and forced her to cash them.
The vehicle in that case also matched the vehicle used in the Dickson City incident.
A search of the SUV yielded 50 checks filled out in other people’s names and three fraudulent identification cards.
The three are charged with felony conspiracy counts of forgery, identify theft, theft by deception and related charges.
On Monday, Dembowski’s and Thomas’ cases were transferred to Lackawanna County Court.
Davis remains at Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bail. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for 9:15 a.m. on Nov. 10 before District Judge George Seig.