Suspect Charged with Stealing, Forging Checks from 84-Year-Old Rosemount Woman

A Farmington woman has been arrested on charges that she cheated an 84-year-old Rosemount woman out of thousands of dollars last year by stealing checks and a money order and forging the victim’s name on them.

Barbara Lee Russell, 60, is charged with three felony counts of check forgery, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

Russell was arrested Wednesday on an outstanding warrant and remains in the Dakota County Jail on a $10,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in her case is scheduled Feb. 6 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, the victim told police in September 2010 that someone had attempted to cash a $3,500 check on her account, made out to “Cash.”

The victim said she had “several people” going in and out of her Rosemount home every day, helping her with her needs. She said she suspected Russell, because of all of her aides, she had known Russell for the least amount of time and because Russell had been to her house “quite a bit” recently, and had access to her checks.

The victim told police that a money order for $300 made out to her had also disappeared.

A Rosemount police investigator confirmed that Russell cashed a $3,500 check on the victim’s account on Aug. 27, 2010, depositing $3,400 into her account and taking $100 in cash. Bank employees also confirmed that the $300 money order made out to the victim was endorsed to Russell and also deposited into her account on Sept. 7, 2010.

In a meeting with police on Oct. 4, 2010, Russell denied stealing and forging the $3,500 check, according to the complaint. She told officers that the victim gave her the check, but that she was “forgetful and probably doesn’t remember.” She also denied knowledge of the $300 money order.

Police and the victim later made a controlled phone call to Russell, during which the victim confronted her about the missing checks. Russell told the victim that she had taken both the checks because she was “desperate for money,” apologized and promised to pay her back, the complaint says.

On Nov. 1, 2010, police met again with Russell, who confessed that she had taken two blank personal checks and the money order from the victim and forged her name on them, according to the complaint.

Russell told police that she had written one check for $3,500 and deposited most of it into her bank account, and that she had forged another check for $750 in July 2010 and cashed it at a bank in Apple Valley, the complaint says.

The victim told police that she had been unaware of the earlier forged check.