Palm Beach Police have arrested a second person in connection with a scam that they said stole nearly $10,000 from Club Colette, the oldest private dining club on the island.
Officers on July 25 arrested a 25-year-old Riviera Beach man, who faces a felony charge of uttering a forgery for what police said was his role in scam called “check washing,” according to court records. He was released from the Palm Beach County Jail on July 26 on a $5,000 bond, jail records show.
Check washing happens when a person changes a check’s payee, dollar amount or both and then fraudulently deposits the money, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Scammers have been known to steal checks from mailboxes and then remove ink by using chemicals, USPIS said.
An 18-year-old Riviera Beach woman was arrested on a felony larceny charge July 17 in connection with the same incident, the Daily News previously reported. She was released on a $5,000 bond and her case is scheduled for arraignment on Aug. 21, court records show.
A representative for Club Colette at 215 Peruvian Ave. called Palm Beach Police on April 8 to say that a check for $9,487.50 mailed on Jan. 29 had been fraudulently altered and deposited to the Riviera Beach woman’s account, according to an arrest report.
The check originally was made out to an ornamental iron works company and had been dropped into the mailbox at the Palm Beach Post Office on South County Road, the club representative told police.
The amount of the check was not changed, and both club representatives said they did not know the woman, the arrest report said.
When police first spoke with the woman on June 23, she told detectives that her PNC Bank account had been closed because of fraudulent activity. She also told police that she had never done any work for Club Colette.
When asked about the check, the woman said that she gave her bank account information to the Riviera Beach man to deposit a check, and in exchange the man told her that he would give her money for allowing him to use her account to complete the transaction, the arrest report said.
On June 26, the woman called police and asked to speak with a detective, the arrest report said. She told him that after depositing the check Feb. 3, she went with the man on Feb. 14 to the Apple store in the Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, where she used the deposited money to buy an iPhone for the man, according to the report.
Surveillance footage from a PNC Bank ATM showed that a person deposited the check from Club Colette into the woman’s account, the arrest report said.
The person in the video was identified as the Riviera Beach man by Palm Beach and West Palm Beach police officers, who recognized him from a previous similar crime for which he was charged last year, the report said. The man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of petit theft in December and he was ordered to pay restitution and court fees, court records show. The man also was ordered to serve two days in jail with credit given for two days already served, according to records. Prosecutors did not pursue a charge of fraudulent use of personal identification, court records show.
It’s unclear from the arrest report how the man obtained Club Colette’s check.
To protect a check from check washing, people can put their mail in a mailbox before the last pickup of the day, retrieve their mail frequently and have their mail held at the post office if going out of the town, USPIS said.
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 Post: Palm Beach Police arrest second person in theft of nearly $10K from Club Colette
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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