Bogus Check Ring Busted

BATON ROUGE, La. - (08/11/05) -- A former employee at BRECO FCU wascharged with stealing the credit union's computer disks and usingthe enclosed member information to facilitate a counterfeit checkring that stole more than $100,000. Maria Dawson, 27, is believedto be the leader of a ring which compromised several areabusinesses and required several of them to close down checkingaccounts. Dawson is charged with giving the credit union disks toVarnessa Fields, 39, then teaching fields how to produce and cashthe bogus checks. When the checks were cashed, Dawson and Fieldswere given a percentage of the money, police said.