GREENSBURG, Pa. — The Greensburg Salem School District thought they were mailing checks to pay one of their vendor bills, but those checks ended up being stolen, police say.
Now two people from out of state are facing charges, accused of stealing those checks. Police are now trying to figure out how.
“It’s kind of the million-dollar question,” said Detective Garret McNamara of the Greensburg Police Department. “They weren’t made out to them, they weren’t addressed to them, and yet they’re still getting these same checks, depositing them at banks, and we’re trying to figure out how they’re getting them.”
Detectives said Bryce Sanders of New Jersey attempted to deposit a check that was originally written to the Insight PA Cyber Charter School near Philadelphia at a credit union in Delaware.
The check was for nearly $3,900.
That credit union called Greensburg Salem School District to verify, and learned the check had been altered.
No longer was it written out to the intended charter school, but to Sanders instead.
Police said Sanders told them the check was sent to him in the mail by the school but couldn’t explain why.
Detectives said that it was a lie.
“They were changing the name and the addresses of the school that was supposed to receive the check to their own name, and their own addresses,” McNamara told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.
Meanwhile, detectives say Alyssa Wright — also of New Jersey -- cashed a check at a PNC Bank.
That check was for more than $6,200, also intended for the same charter school.
PNC Bank alerted the school after that check was cashed.
McNamara believes this investigation is bigger than just these two facing charges.
“I think so,” he said. “To go through all the effort of receiving the checks from a school district, to whitewashing them pretty much, then trying to or actually depositing them into your bank account, it seems like its more than a two-person operation.”
The district tells Channel 11′s Havranek neither Sanders or Wright have any connections to the school.
They’ve handed the investigation over to the police.
They say one check made it to the right place.
One was lost, but they stopped payment on it.
The credit union in Delaware never cashed the one in Sanders’ possession.
But, they’re out the $6,200 Wright allegedly cashed. They’re waiting to be reimbursed. They said the bank told them it could take three to four months.
Right now, police are working to bring the two suspects back to Greensburg.
“Hopefully we can speak to them and figure out how they did receive the checks, or how the checks were made out to them,” McNamara said.
The district tells Channel 11 that the charter school they intended to pay for understands the situation, and the service is not impacted.
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