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Elkins man charged with fraud

Hendon

Hendon

ELKINS — A Randolph County man is behind bars after allegedly stealing checks and bank account numbers and using them in more than 50 fraudulent transactions.

Ashton Shane Hendon, 20, of Elkins, is charged with one felony count of fraudulent use of an access device, one felony count of forgery and one felony count of uttering. He is housed at Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $54,000 cash-only bond, set by Randolph County Magistrate Ben Shepler.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Randolph County Magistrate Court, on July 14, Deputy D.D. Pennington, of the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, received a call from Elkins Police Department Patrolman T.H. Foster regarding a stolen check complaint.

Foster said he took a written statement from the alleged victim, received statements that were gathered from the bank regarding the alleged fraudulent transactions and obtained surveillance videos of transactions that took place at Wal-Mart in Elkins. Foster later discovered the alleged victim lived outside of the city limits, which was the reason the case was transferred to Pennington, police said.

According to the alleged victim’s statement, on June 27, he was unable to access his online banking accounts due to someone attempting the password multiple times without success. After contacting the bank for assistance, he was able to gain access to the account and discovered that several transactions had taken place on his account without

approval.

The first transaction took place on June 27 and seven blank checks, totaling $1,056.82 had been used. The checks appeared to have been stolen from the desk in the alleged victim’s residence, the complaint states.

The alleged victim said it appeared as though his grandson, Hendon, had written one of the checks to himself. He added that Hendon had admitted via text message that he had “did something wrong,” police said.

After reviewing the surveillance video from Wal-Mart, the individual making the transaction was identified as Hendon. Additionally, an electronic receipt provided bore a signature that appeared to be Hendon’s, the complaint states.

Pennington then met with the alleged victim to speak to him in person regarding the case. At that time, the alleged victim provided Pennington with a copy of the conversation he had with Hendon via text message. During that conversation, the alleged victim told Hendon he had discovered fraud on his checking account, that Hendon’s name was associated with it and that he needed “to stop.” Hendon responded, “I won’t do anything else I’m sorry (sic),” the complaint states.

According to a separate complaint filed by Pennington, on Sept. 1, he received a complaint from the same alleged  victim, who is involved with Randolph County 4-H. The complaint alleges that Hendon stole the account numbers to the 4-H bank account.

The alleged victim added that the personal checks that Hendon had previously stolen from him were kept in a briefcase along with the 4-H information. He said that information had been tampered with but upon his inspection it looked “undisturbed,” the complaint states.

The alleged victim provided Pennington with a statement that included copies of documents from Citizens Bank of West Virginia that show how many times the account numbers had been used. The documents showed 44 transactions into accounts that had been created by Hendon. The transactions totaled $52,607.44. The first transaction took placed on June 30, the complaint states.

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