Bad Checks

People caught writing bad checks in Anne Arundel County may be sent back to school for a crash course in personal-finance management and self-improvement. A new privatized program in the county is building on a 2-decades-old effort by the state's attorney's office that has diverted thousands of cases from court and gotten millions of dollars returned to merchants. But until now, merchants have had to pay to recoup their losses - either $5 or 10 percent of the bounced check amount and sometimes the $25 fee banks assess a merchant when a check bounces, plus mailing and incidental fees - which eats into the sums they recover.

Carole Colbert Sales shouldn't have bounced those grocery checks. She should have returned her rented videotapes on time. And she should have appeared in court to take responsibility for her errors.But does she really belong on a list of Anne Arundel's "Most Wanted" criminals?Since she appeared on the list last month, Sales has been stoppedin the checkout lines at grocery stores by clerks who recognized herand chased, on foot, through Glen Burnie by police."I've had a horrible week," said Sales, "hiding out" in her sister's kitchen in Lansdowne shortly after the chase.

WESTMINSTER -- When he found a 22-year-old woman guilty of three counts of bad checks, Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. told her she used "a pen like someone uses a pistol."Victoria Cunningham, was found guilty of writing three bad checks at county grocery stores last year after she agreed to plead not guilty but accept the state's version of the facts.One of the checks was for $224 at George's Super Thrift in Eldersburg, another was for $296 at the Westminster Co-Op grocery store, and the third was for $132 at Millers Food Market.

A federal grand jury indicted Tuesday the surviving owner of A&B Check Cashing - named the 2003 "check casher of the year" by Financial Service Centers of America - on charges that he and his brother ran a three-year "kiting" scheme that netted more than $12 million from two Maryland banks. According to a 12-count indictment, Brian Satisky and his brother, Alec, who committed suicide in 2006, perpetrated the scheme by writing bad checks on one account, depositing them into another and using that account to write more bad checks to cover the first.

CHARLOTTE HALL -- Early crops sprouting along Route 5 this spring include the campaign signs of Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, a high-ranking Maryland Democrat brushed by the House banking scandal.In one farm field after another, passing motorists see the candidate's last name underscored by an elegant, flowing motif of Maryland's flag.Mr. Hoyer, who admitted last week that he wrote four bad checks, has to hope that voters will think of him in terms of the gold in the state flag and not the red -- which might remind them of huge federal deficits, of the half-billion-dollar savings and loan TC bailout, and of House members who wrote bad checks with impunity.

Harford County merchants are being warned about accepting checks drawn on out-of-state banks after a recent increase in bad-check cases.The written advisory was based on a "growing trend, a new form of shoplifting where people buy something and knowingly write a bad check to pay for it," said State's Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly."

Kweisi Mfume was quite honored when he was asked to fill a seat on the House ethics committee last October, even though the reason for the opening was embarrassing.Louis Stokes, Democrat from Ohio and chairman of the committee, had to step down when it was discovered that he had written rubber checks at the House bank.But Mfume was considered a good choice for a committee slot. He had a reputation for being serious, sober and solid.And so House Speaker Tom Foley wanted to know just one thing before Mfume was appointed: Had Mfume written any bad checks himself?

Racial insensitivity is always distasteful, but especially when it serves no real purpose. Consider the ludicrous practice of coding racial identification on checks written at retail stores. Until customers complained, Merry-Go-Round Enterprises, Sears Roebuck and Safeway Stores required clerks to identify and code a shopper's race on personal checks. The merchants, who have since discontinued the practice, claim the information was "solely for identification in the event that the check does not clear."

Baltimore prosecutors say Michael Murray ordered merchandise from companies like Coca-Cola Co. and Gillette Co., paid for it with bad checks and immediately ordered more products for nearly two years. In the end, authorities say, the Baltimore man defrauded nine companies of more than $335,000 in merchandise. Yesterday, he pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge and could be sentenced to as much as 18 months in prison and five years of supervised probation. He also could be ordered to pay up to $112,822 in restitution.

Interestingly, perhaps ironically, the color of Stephanie Austin's skin was not an issue in her successful civil damage suit against Paramount's Kings Dominion. A jury awarded her $80,000 for false arrest and malicious prosecution without ever hearing Austin's attorney suggest that the appalling treatment of a young black woman in a Virginia amusement park three years ago might have been racially motivated.Austin, too, was spared such contemplations, and almost, it seems, glad of it - even though her original complaints against Paramount included "corporate arrogance and racism."