RACINE – A woman was charged with attempted fraud by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday after she tried to withdrawal $17,000 from an account at Wells Fargo Bank that did not belong to her.
Sherry N. Evans, 38, of Dalton, Illinois, was charged in Racine County Circuit Court with felony counts of attempted fraud against a financial institution, two counts of forgery and one count of personal identity theft, along with a misdemeanor count of obstructing an officer.
The felonies carry a fine of $42,500 and 23 years in prison. The misdemeanor carries a fine of $10,000 and nine months in county jail.
According to the criminal complaint:
Officers with the Racine Police Department were called to Wells Fargo Bank, 1700 Martin Luther King Drive, in reference to a suspicious party.
The branch managers stated that a female, later identified as Evans, was attempting to withdraw $17,000 using two different withdrawal slips and only a first name and last initial. The defendant produced a California driver’s license, but the teller stated it appeared to be fake.
The teller called the actual account holder, who lives in California, who stated she was not trying to make a transaction and that nobody had permission to access her account.
Evans allegedly told the teller she needed the money to buy some property. She was unable to provide a PIN number and seemed to be reading the account information right from her phone. Police ran a check of the actual account holder, and the physical description of both women did not match. The defendant continued to claim she was the account holder until police determined through the use of fingerprints that she was not.
Evans made her initial appearance in court Thursday.