Sheriff: Woman arrested for cashing $32k fraudulent check | Crime

Lexington County Sheriff’s Department detectives in cooperation with the Columbia Police Department arrested a Columbia woman they say cashed a fraudulent check at a bank.

Deputies arrested 34-year-old Joannie L. Colon on Tuesday on charges that she cashed a fraudulent check in the amount of $32,540.12 at a bank on Regency Drive near Irmo.

According to sheriff’s deputies, Colon turned herself in at about 10:53 a.m. on Tuesday at the Lexington County James R. Metts Law Enforcement Complex on arrest warrants on charges of forgery and defrauding a federally chartered or insured financial institution.

Arrest warrants allege that on October 26, 2012 Colon cashed a fraudulent check made payable in Colon’s name in the amount of $32,540.12 at a Bank of America branch office at 104 Regency Drive, using a New Jersey identification card issued in Colon’s name, the report stated. The check was written on the bank account of The Damani Foundation, Inc. in Norcross, Ga. Deputies say Colon established an account with Bank of America two days before she cashed the fraudulent check at the Regency Drive branch office.

The foundation later informed Bank of America that checks on the foundation’s bank account had been forged and the bank account had been compromised.

Colon was being held on Tuesday at the Lexington County Detention Center while awaiting a bond hearing.