U.S. Treasury Checks Cashed : Rental Firm Owner Gets 14 Years in Forgery Scam

The operator of a Sherman Oaks car rental agency was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for forging and cashing 400 stolen U.S. Treasury checks worth $250,000.

Postal authorities said the scheme, masterminded by Howard Tyrone Ferguson, 47, who lives in Beverly Hills, “was one of the largest check-cashing operations in the history of California in terms of the number of stolen checks cashed.”

Besides imposing the prison term, U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rymer ordered Ferguson to make restitution. He had been found guilty April 11 of seven felony charges, including conspiracy, receiving stolen government property and forgery.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles J. Stevens said Ferguson “perpetrated the scheme through an account at the Security Pacific National Bank’s Century City branch between March and May of 1983.”

Ferguson, who owns Alfa Rent-a-Car, acted “as a sort of clearinghouse” for stolen government checks at an office he rented at 940 S. La Brea Ave., said co-prosecutor David W. Wiechert.

Testimony at Ferguson’s trial revealed that he bribed Charles Belcher, an official at the bank, to authorize deposit of the forged checks in a bank account and subsequent withdrawal of cash from that account.

Belcher, in a plea bargain with the prosecution, admitted his role in the scheme and testified against Ferguson.

Ferguson’s attorney, Anthony Brooklier, asked for a light sentence, arguing that Ferguson was a good candidate for rehabilitation. Brooklier said that Ferguson, a former professional football player, once “had been successfully operating the largest minority building contractor business in the United States.”

But Rymer said rehabilitation was not a major factor in sentencing Ferguson. She noted that he operated the stolen check scheme while on probation from a 1982 conviction for diverting $104,000 from the company to his personal use instead of using it to pay for materials on a construction project.