Forgery Suspect Arrested : Police Issue Warning on Phony Checks, ID

San Fernando Valley merchants should watch for fake identification and bogus checks during the holiday season, Los Angeles police said Wednesday after the arrest last week of a North Hollywood woman accused of forgery.

Laurie Ruth Cazden, 42, told investigators she has spent about $100,000 in illicit checks in the past year, Detective Russ Pungrchar said. Detectives estimated that the bogus checks linked to Cazden have cost Valley merchants from $10,000 to $15,000 in the last three weeks, he said.

Cazden used stolen and falsified identification to pass printed copies of checks, most of them traveler’s checks, Pungrchar said. She was arrested last week in a 1987 Cadillac Seville she had rented using the false identification, he said.

Police are seeking a second woman and suspect more people might be passing phony checks linked to Cazden, Pungrchar said.

Cazden, who told police she is an unemployed secretary, pleaded not guilty to forgery and other felony charges Monday in Van Nuys Municipal Court. She is being held in County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is set Wednesday in the Van Nuys court.

The checks, most of them photocopies of forged American Express and Home Savings of America traveler’s checks, were used mostly to buy women’s clothing, which authorities suspect Cazden sold, the detective said.

When Cazden was arrested Nov. 12 in Van Nuys, she was on her way to a print shop, which she had asked to print 1,000 fake credit cards and blank Social Security cards and California driver’s license formats, Pungrchar said. The printer tipped police that Cazden had asked him to reproduce phony driver’s licenses, detectives said.

Numerous stolen credit and identification cards and driver’s licenses in two names were found in Cazden’s possession, Pungrchar said. More than 100 photocopies of American Express checks, in $50 and $100 denominations, and about 50 copies of Home Savings checks, in $20 and $50 denominations, were found in the Cadillac, he said.

Cazden apparently printed some of the false checks, including a few phony payroll checks, and had print shops reproduce the others with color photocopying machines, he said. The shops are not being investigated because, although it is a crime to make a phony check from scratch, it is not against the law to reproduce one, he said.

Pungrchar said merchants can protect themselves by closely examining identification cards to be sure the shoppers’ photographs match their faces and their signatures match those on the checks.

In addition to two counts of forgery, Cazden is charged with receiving stolen property, grand theft of an automobile and perjuring herself to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.