ST. GEORGE, Utah, April 15, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — A St. George man allegedly defrauded an 87-year-old victim out of more than $30,000 over three years, police said.
A probable cause statement from the 5th District Court of Washington County said Trenton John Roberts, 24, is facing charges of:
- Theft, a second-degree felony
- 10 counts of forgery, a third-degree felony
The probable cause statement said the victim reported multiple fraudulent checks written on his checking account. He stated he learned that these multiple checks had allegedly been written out to Roberts and the victim did not authorize them.
It was subsequently found there were allegedly 30 checks written from December 2017 to September 2020 which were deposited into Roberts’ Mountain America Credit Union account. The credit union stated the total amount of the fraudulent checks was $30,384.05. The victim told police he knew Roberts and had “helped him out” by giving him a check in the past.
“He stated it appeared that the check he had given Trenton had been altered and redeposited into Trenton’s MACU account multiple times,” the statement said. “MACU representatives reached out to Trenton about these fraudulent checks, and he had not contacted them to explain why the checks were deposited into this account.”
The credit union provided officials with Roberts’ bank statements from 2017 to 2020 as well as copies of the 30 fraudulent checks. All the checks were written out to Roberts and were deposited into his account. The checks were deposited into Roberts’ account through mobile deposit, so MACU provided the arresting officer with the IP addresses for the last three mobile deposits. The IP address showed the subscriber’s address being in St. George.
Roberts agreed to meet with the arresting officer, but then did not show up for that interview. Contact was made on Wednesday and Roberts said he would be willing to speak with the officer with an attorney present.
He was transported to Washington County Jail with his bail set at $5,000.
The felonies were committed when Roberts was on probation or parole.
