by Kevin Lilly
Pharos-Tribune news editor
June 25, 2009 10:34 pm
—
Formal charges have been filed against a couple arrested for allegedly stealing checks and trying to cash them.
In Cass Circuit Court on Thursday, Judge Leo Burns informed 33-year-old Belinda Jane Myers of Walton that she faces a class C felony count of forgery and a class D felony count of theft.
Earlier in the week, her alleged accomplice, 46-year-old Walton resident Brett Lee Sisson, was charged with possession of a controlled substance and aiding, inducing or causing theft, both class D felonies.
The couple is suspected of stealing checks from a mailbox on South River Road in May and making multiple attempts, some of which were successful, to cash them at businesses in Cass and Tippecanoe counties.
Someone fitting Myers’ description was captured on surveillance trying to cash one of the checks at a tavern in Logansport. Police had a photo of the culprit published in the Pharos-Tribune with a request for information from the public.
Acting on a tip generated by local news stories, the Cass County Sheriff’s Department arrested Myers and Sisson at a campsite on the same road the checks had been stolen from.
Myers allegedly forged signatures, while Sisson, who was allegedly in possession of pills not prescribed to him, is accused of driving Myers to the businesses to cash the stolen checks.
Both Myers and Sisson were appointed public defenders to represent them. They remain in the Cass County Jail. Myers has a bond of $1,000 cash/$5,000 surety.
Sisson, who was out on parole, had been released from prison in September after serving 11 years of a 20-year sentence for class B felony rape. The rape occurred in Cass County in 1996. He currently has no bond.
Trials in both cases are set in the fall. If convicted, a C felony carries a maximum of eight years in prison. Each class D felony has three-year maximums.
• Kevin Lilly is news editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5117 or kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com
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