A New York man has been charged with forcing a woman to participate in a fraudulent check scheme that came to light last month when she tried to cash a forged check at a Berks County bank branch.
Alfredo Davis, 41, of Bronx was charged by Spring Township police with involuntary servitude, access device fraud and identity theft.
Online court records indicate he faces similar charges in Lackawanna County.
According to court records:
On Sept. 24, Spring Township police were called to Mid Penn Bank, 3100 Shillington Road, for a report of a woman who had been identified as a person involved in a fraudulent check-cashing incident a few days earlier at a branch in Allentown.
A bank employee said an older woman asked to cash a check for $2,500. The check was drawn on the account of a St. Lawrence couple but made out to a woman with the first name Ellen.
The woman cashing the check identified herself as Ellen (with the same last name) and presented a driver’s license with a photo ID.
However, due to recent fraud activity at Mid Penn Bank branches, employees were suspicious the moment she walked in.
An employee pulled up an alert email issued by the branch at 3900 Hamilton Blvd. in Allentown on Sept. 19. The person in that fraud incident had used a Spring Township victim.
Employees contacted police. While waiting for officers to arrive, they stalled until the woman, having grown suspicious, walked out, leaving her license behind.
The branch manager followed her, and arriving officers took her into custody.
She agreed to speak with police — reluctantly at first — because she had been threatened with violence to force her participation.
Detective Cory W. Huntsinger stated in his affidavit that it’s not uncommon for those perpetrating check-cashing schemes to coerce homeless or drug-addicted individuals to participate in exchange for money or drugs.
Investigators learned she was wearing a Bluetooth earpiece connected to her cellphone when officers stopped her. She was in direct communication with others as she was being taken into custody.
The 63-year-old Bronx woman said the people behind the scheme were telling her through the earpiece what to say to bank employees and later to officers during her initial encounter with police.
She said they drove her around, handed her fraudulent checks and identification. She said they had a key to her apartment as well as her actual ID. They vowed to come after her if she didn’t cooperate.
She said she initially agreed to help but later told them that she no longer wanted to participate. She said she was punched and kicked and told she had no choice but to go through with it because the group had spent money obtaining her IDs.
Police identified an SUV with New Jersey registration in surveillance footage from the area of the bank.
A search of a traffic camera database showed the vehicle had been recorded traveling throughout Berks, Lehigh, Bucks and Chester counties, as well as Delaware and North Carolina.
Police tracked the vehicle to Davis. The woman identified him from a photo lineup as the person who had beaten her, kept her ID and apartment key, and wrote the fraudulent checks.
Arrest details were unavailable.
According to online court records, Davis was held in Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bail following his arraignment there on Oct. 16. He was extradited to Berks County on Wednesday on a warrant from Spring Township police.
Davis was committed to Berks County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail to await a hearing following arraignment before District Judge Gail M. Greth in Reading Central Court.