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ST. GEORGE —Two women are in jail following an investigation that was set in motion when officers reportedly found evidence of a forgery operation during a Santa Clara traffic stop in January.
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Revealed in the investigation was a $52,000 check written for a Babe Ruth baseball collector trading card.
Kathleen Henninger, 46, and Dagmar Stoss, 67, both of Ivins, were arrested Monday and transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility and booked into jail, each facing two third-degree felony charges of forgery and possession of a forgery device.
The arrests involved two fraudulent checks that were drawn on a business account without the knowledge or consent of the account holder. The first was allegedly cashed by the suspect, according to charging documents filed with the court.
The suspect told investigators she had received a check from someone she had previously met in prison while serving time for a similar forgery case.
The check was drafted from what appeared to be a business account, and during the interview, Henninger said she was aware her friend was not associated with the company listed on the account. The suspect accepted the check as a down payment for tattoo work that police say was never scheduled or completed.
The officer also noted that Henninger stated, “she thought this check was alarming given her prior knowledge of forgery,” and then proceeded to cash the $761 check at the Walmart in Hurricane.
Based on the suspect’s criminal history and prior cases involving “fraud and forgery,” investigators suspected that Henninger was aware she was executing a fraudulent transaction.
Court records indicate Henninger has an extensive criminal history dating back to 2002 with nearly a dozen cases and convictions — many of which involved forgery, fraud, identity fraud and theft — as well as several terms in Utah State Prison.
The second suspect, Stoss, told detectives that in January, she had received a check from a “Ms. Westfall” in the amount of $52,000, following the sale of a Babe Ruth baseball collector card.
Stoss told detectives she was asked to cash the check, and in return, she said Westfall told her she would give her part of the proceeds. She said when she took the check to the bank to cash it, she was later notified that the transaction did not go through.
When pressed, the suspect also told investigators the check was also drafted from a business account instead of from Westfall, who was the purported issuer of the check.
Investigators also learned that after the attempt to cash the check failed, the suspect never contacted “Westfall,” who gave her the check, nor did Stoss ever contact law enforcement to report the incident.
St. George News contacted Santa Clara-Ivins Detective J. Bate who said that on Jan. 12, officers found a printer, blank checks and other evidence during a traffic stop that led officers to believe the equipment was linked to a forgery operation.
The detective also said when Stoss took the check into the bank to cash it, the account was already flagged for suspicious activity, so the bank retained the draft without cashing it. Bate said investigators gathered surveillance footage from the bank and other businesses that helped identify the suspects.
Detectives then obtained a search warrant for the home in Ivins that Henninger and Stoss shared and during the search collected further evidence connected to the fraud scheme.
On Tuesday, formal charges were filed against each of the suspects and both remain in custody without bail.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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