Racine police say a man who stole money from a friend last summer took another man’s credit card and pointed a gun at the man before throwing the man’s card back at him.
Maurice Hatchett was charged Monday in Racine County Circuit Court with one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon, and one misdemeanor count each of theft and pointing a firearm at another and two misdemeanor counts of fraudulent use of a credit card. If convicted, he faces up to 13 years in prison and/or up to $65,000 in fines.
Two criminal complaints
The cashier’s check
According to the two criminal complaints filed against him, a woman in August 2020 lent Hatchett her car. At the time he used her car, there was a cashier’s check for $600 in the center console, and it was still present when Hatchett returned the vehicle. The next day, the woman found one of her car windows broken and the check missing. Surveillance footage from a local liquor store clearly depicts Hatchett cashing the check there and using his legal ID to do so.
The credit card
Then, on April 23, 2022, a man reported he received alerts on his phone that his lost credit card had been used twice that same day at two different gas stations, the complaint reads. The man canceled his card right away, visited one of the gas stations where the owner showed him video footage of the person who used his card, later identified as Hatchett, and called the police.
Police say while the man waited for officers to arrive, the man realized Hatchett was behind him in line at the gas station. When the man confronted Hatchett by threatening to break his neck if Hatchett didn’t return the card, Hatchett displayed a handgun before running out of the store and fleeing in a vehicle that was parked at one of the pumps. The man thought he locked all the doors to the store, but Hatchett returned a few minutes later on foot, opened the only unlocked door, and threw the credit card at the man.
Hatchett was assigned a total of $750 in cash bonds for the two cases. He will next be in court on May 19 for his preliminary hearing for the felony case and on July 5 for a status conference for the theft charge.
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