(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing woman who is accused of passing three forged checks totaling $11,500 on her parents’ bank accounts has been released from the Payne County Jail on $7,500 bail, authorities said Monday.
JoAnn L. Bumgardner, 44, was arrested Friday and arraigned before a Payne County judge, who ordered her to return to court Jan. 11 with an attorney, court records show.
Cushing Police Detective Adam Harp wrote in an affidavit that Bumgardner’s parents alleged that their daughter, JoAnn, came to their home in Enid on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 and took two checks from their checkbook.
Bumgardner’s father told Enid police that he and his wife had been informed by their bank that they did not have any funds in their account, the affidavit said.
Two checks, one for $4,500 on Oct. 29, and one for $3,500 on Nov. 1, had a signature that the defendant’s mother said was not hers, the affidavit alleged. Both checks had been cashed at the Bank of the West in Cushing, the affidavit said.
The $3,500 check — which had a note that it was for roof labor — was endorsed by a Cushing man, who told police that he had cashed the check for a friend named JoAnn Bumgardner, the affidavit alleged.
He said that “JoAnn asked him to cash the check because she did not have a bank account anywhere, so she made the check out to him,” the affidavit alleged. He said “he did not know that the check was stolen nor forged,” the affidavit said.
The $4,500 check was cashed on Oct. 29 by a woman who was a bank customer, when she came in with Bumgardner, the affidavit alleged.
When the Cushing police detective interviewed Bumgardner, “JoAnn admitted that she took two checks from her parents’ house in Enid,” the affidavit alleged.
She admitted that she forged her mother’s name and had one friend cash one check and another friend cash the other check “because she did not have a bank account anywhere,” the affidavit alleged.
Bumgardner said that her friends “did not know about the checks being taken or forged and were just helping her out by cashing them,” the affidavit alleged.
When the detective asked Bumgardner why another woman’s name was also endorsed on one of the checks, Bumgardner said “she tried to cash it for her at her bank in Perkins, but she was in the hole and they would not cash it,” the affidavit alleged.
Bumgardner said that she and her parents had been fighting over money, the affidavit said.
“JoAnn said that she can ask her parents for money because there is a trust fund that is set up and that they usually gave her money, but they would not on this occasion,” the affidavit alleged.
“JoAnn said that she needed the money for Christmas and bills.
“I asked JoAnn if she had any of the money left and she said no,” the detective wrote in his affidavit.
The detective then learned from Enid police that another check was stolen and forged for $3,500 on another bank account of the defendant’s parents, and cashed at the Bank of the West on Oct. 21, the affidavit alleged.
Still photographs from an Oct. 29 transaction at the Bank of the West showed Bumgardner and another woman cashing one of the checks, the affidavit alleged.
When the woman was interviewed by the detective, she said, “about a month ago, JoAnn called her and said that she got a card in the mail with a check for her birthday and Christmas,” for $4,500 — which the woman cashed for her at the Bank of the West, the affidavit alleged.
The woman said that she cashed another check for $2,500 or $3,500 for Bumgardner, who claimed her mother gave it to her to have her electricity turned on, the affidavit said.
The woman said that “she did not think anything about the large amount of money because JoAnn has received an inheritance from a deceased relative,” the affidavit said.
If convicted of three counts of second-degree forgery totaling $11,500 on her parents’ bank accounts, Bumgardner could be given a 21-year prison term, according to the charges filed by Payne County Assistant District Attorney Charles Rogers last week.
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