Two Chicago men with attempted fraud and identity theft after they tried to get a car loan with someone else’s driver’s license at Educator’s Credit Union in Sturtevant.
Kevin Shealey, 49, and Jeffrey Maxwell, 42, were charged by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office with attempted fraud against a financial institution and felony personal identity theft. Maxwell was charged with being party to a crime. Shealy also was charged with forgery.
If Shealy is convicted of all charges, he faces up to 15 years in prison and/or fined up to $30,000. If Maxwell is convicted, he faces up to nine years in prison and/or fined up to $20,000.
According to the criminal complaint, the Wheaton Police Department in Illinois alerted the Mount Pleasant Police Department that one of their residents had his driver’s license used at Educator’s Credit Union for a car loan. When officers learned a woman had tried to do the same thing at another Educator’s Credit Union location in Kenosha. The woman drove a car with the same Illinois license plate.
Shealey and Maxwell then used that same driver’s license to get a $9,000 personal loan and were at the Sturtevant location. While police approached the two, Maxwell tried to destroy his cell phone by pouring a drink on it.
Shealey told police he needed the money because “he owed some people a lot of money but knew what he was doing was wrong.”
When police looked at the suspect’s photo and Shealy, they realized it was not the same person from that case. However, he told police he would help find the person responsible. Shealey had just recently gotten out of jail in Cook County after being convicted of similar offenses. Officers found that he had a fake driver’s license that he used, but didn’t come back on file out of Illinois.
Maxwell told police he didn’t really know Maxwell and he was just bringing him to the credit union to open a savings account. He told police he tried to destroy the phone because he knew it was Shealey’s and that he was “up to trouble when he was in the bank for so long.”
Police believe Maxwell was acting as a lookout.
Staff at the credit union told police that a fraud alert came up on Shealey because his address didn’t match the credit report. Shealey told staff he was taking out the loan to pay for his daughter’s wedding.
Shealey admitted that he was trying to take  out the loan with a fake driver’s license, which he got from “some guys to which he owes money.”
Maxwell downplayed his part in the incident and said Shealey just paid him $150 to take him to the credit union.
Shealey and Maxwell are being held on a $500 cash bond. Both men have a preliminary hearing set for 9 a.m. March 3 in front of Racine County Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch.
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