A 65-year-old woman accused of forging checks and perpetrating identity theft in Riverside County and elsewhere in the state, stealing tens of thousands of dollars, was charged Friday with grand theft and other offenses.
Mindy Lee Stovall of Santa Ana was arrested Wednesday following a Murrieta Police Department investigation.
Along with two counts of grand theft, Stovall is charged with four counts each of forgery, check fraud and identity theft, as well as one count of possession of controlled substances, with a sentence-enhancing allegation of perpetrating a white collar crime.
The defendant, who is being held in lieu of $30,000 bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning, was slated to make her initial court appearance Friday afternoon at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.
According to Murrieta police Lt. Brendan Carney, Stovall allegedly perpetrated a series of thefts at a local retail outlet in December and early January.
“The same female suspect entered the store and fraudulently purchased thousands of dollars of merchandise, using stolen identities and forged checks,” Carney said.
He said that detectives were ultimately able to identify the defendant as the alleged thief and soon discovered she had been “committing similar crimes throughout the state and was a suspect in a similar series in Orange County.”
“In all, Stovall is suspected of making fraudulent purchases in excess of $70,000,” the lieutenant said.
Murrieta police detectives combined with U.S. Postal Service inspectors and Orange County sheriff’s personnel to complete their investigation, culminating in a search warrant being obtained and served at a residence in the 33000 block of Brighton Wood in Menifee on Wednesday morning.
“Detectives detained Stovall at the location … and also found thousands of fraudulent documents believed to have been used by Stovall during the series,” Carney said. “Additionally, personal information belonging to over 600 people was confiscated.”
The defendant was taken into custody without incident.
She has no documented prior felony convictions.