TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Quincy woman has been arrested for bank fraud and criminally using an elderly person's identification.
Janna Lashar Makayla Fryson, 19, was booked into jail on Thursday.
Law enforcement officers are seeking Jonathan Vance, a Tallahassee man, based on charges of having helped Fryson commit the criminal acts.
On Nov. 6, 2018, Fryson, a member of First Florida Credit Union, went into three different FFCU locations and cashed four checks totaling $3,700, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Each check she presented was returned on Nov. 21, 2018, as a closed account, resulting in a loss to the credit union of $3,748.
She said that on Nov. 16, 2018, Vance contacted her and told her to meet him at her bank, FFCU, and she did.
There he handed her two checks, one drawn on Envision for $1,000 and the other on Tallahassee-Leon Federal Credit Union for $1,000, and she cashed them.
They then drove to another FFCU location as well as to a Sunshine Savings Bank location and cashed two more checks. Both checks were drawn on the Tallahassee-Leon Federal Credit Union, one for $800 and the other for $900.
After cashing all four checks, Fryson left Vance and drove home. Fryson's bank, FFCU, called her on Nov. 21, 2018, to notify her that all the checks were from closed accounts, she told the investigator.
Fryson first told the investigator she and Vance did not know each other, then that they were co-workers, and finally that they were just friends.
In a post-Miranda Rights interview, Fryson told the investigator she knew that cashing the checks was criminal in some way. She said she kept $1,000 of the $3,700 and Vance kept $2,700.
Fryson said Vance was experienced in "popping the bank," which she explained as Vance being experienced in getting money from banks.
During her interview, Fryson said she did not notice that none of the checks had Vance's name on them. Three checks had the name of a man and one check had the name of a 75-year-old woman.
There was no report of any burglary of theft from the man whose name was on the three checks. But there was a burglary report of the elderly woman's purse being stolen from her vehicle.
A bank employee reached out to Fryson and got in contact with Vance, who denied all involvement. Vance was told by the bank employee that he would be given an opportunity to take care of the charges by Nov. 23, 2018, but he did not.
Fryson's charges are criminal use of personal identifications information (victim over 60) possession of counterfeit payment instrument (4 counts), uttering (4 counts), bank fraud (6) and organized scheme to defraud.
She remained in the Leon County Detention Center on Friday on a $23,000 bond.
Vance has been charged with criminal use of personal identifications information (victim over 60), possession of counterfeit payment instrument (4 counts), bank fraud and ortganized scheme to defraud.
Vance has not been booked into jail.
