The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum on Whitehall Way is a respected institution in Palm Beach, and the recipient of donations from many of the island’s generous philanthropists.
A suburban Boca Raton woman is now accused of trying to do the opposite by taking money from the Gilded Age museum, after Palm Beach Police said she deposited a counterfeit check for $45,851.17 drawn on one of the Flagler’s bank accounts into her own account.
The 31-year-old was arrested April 14 on charges of grand theft, uttering a forged check and criminal use of personal identification information, according to court records. She was released April 16 on a $45,000 bond, jail records show.
An alert representative with Northern Trust notified the Flagler Museum in January that the counterfeit check had been deposited into the woman’s account, police said in an arrest report. A Flagler executive reviewed the museum’s checkbook and found that the check in question had been made out to Amazon, not the woman, police said.
Palm Beach Police in March reviewed the woman’s bank records and found that the check was deposited into the woman’s account on Jan. 28, the report said. The $45,851.17 was withdrawn from her account on Feb. 2 and deposited again the same day, police said.
The woman admitted depositing the check into her account during a phone call with a Palm Beach detective on April 9, the report said. She told the detective during the call that she received the counterfeit check from a person while in New York for a modeling photo shoot, according to the report.
When the woman returned to Florida, she deposited the check into her bank account under the belief that once the check cleared, she would keep half of the money and give the rest to the other person, police said.
The woman told the detective “that it was dumb on her part, that she had a horrible year and she was not thinking clearly,” the report said.
The woman was ordered not to have contact with the Flagler Museum, according to court records.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Forged $45K check from Palm Beach museum leads to arrest, police say
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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