|
Official
expects ’01 bad-check
collections to top $1 million
(from the ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
January 11, 2001)
Innovative programs
boost county’s ability
to garner restitution
Official cites "quicker
response"
BY TIM ROWDEN
of the Post-Dispatch
How does a $25 pizza become a $135 pizza?
Write a bad check in Jefferson County, and Prosecutor Bob
Wilkins will be happy to demonstrate.
The prosecutor’s office collected
11,100 of 11,942 bad checks submitted
last year.
Restitution and court costs on those checks
totaled $981,000.
Wilkins says he expects that number to total
$1 million this year, more than doubling the amount collected in
1995, when he came into office.
Wilkins attributes the
increase to better collection efforts
and a philosophy that places restitution ahead of
prosecution.
"The number of bad checks has gone up
every year, but just as important is every
year we’re collecting a bigger percentage,"
Wilkins said.
"I wouldn’t say that more checks are
being written, but because of a quicker
response and a more definitive response we’re
collecting more than we have in the past."
Wilkins started a group last year that uses
fees collected on bad checks to pay overtime for sheriff’s
deputies to track down people who have written rubber checks and
haven’t tried to make good on them.
The group was started in June and collected
$27,000 in restitution on more than 300 bad checks in its first
week.
Wilkins has a theory about bad-check writers.
He believes that most don’t intentionally set out to defraud
merchants but lack the financial means to pay their bills and
have never learned to manage their money well.
"When you see checks being written at
the end of the month for gasoline and food and then they pay it
off in 30 days, I understand that." Wilkins said.
"Most of these people are surviving that
way. They’re not criminals. Most of these people are poor
people, and this is one of the ways they have to cope."
A pizza with the works
This is how the collection process works:
Bad checks submitted by merchants to the
prosecuting attorney’s office are entered into a computer
database, where a letter is generated informing the check writer
that he has 10 days to make restitution or face legal action. At
the end of that 10 days, a second letter is sent informing the
check writer that he will be charged if the does not make
arrangements for repayment within five days.
Once a criminal case is filed, a plea date is
set, roughly 120 days from the date the case is filed. If
payment is made before the plea date, the case is dropped. If
not, offenders may be sentenced to between six months and two
years probation, depending on the amount of the check – with
repayment of the bad check, bank fees, court costs, and the
prosecutor’s bad-check fee spread out in the monthly payments
over the period of probation. Offenders must make the payments
in person each month at the prosecuting attorney’s office in
Hillsboro.
Wilkins says that most of the checks on which
his office collects are written for small amounts, but that the
fees add up quickly.
For instance, making good on a $25 check for
pizza delivery would require an additional $20 fee to cover the
merchant’s banking fees, a $10 fee to the prosecutor’s
bad-check fund, and $80.50 for court fees and crime-victim’s
compensation, if the check is not repaid before charges are
filed. Total cost: $135.50.
"It gets to be a pretty expensive
pizza," Wilkins said. "Our goal is to get that money
collected long before we have to file charges."
Wilkins says the majority of bad checks
submitted to his office are paid in full in less than 10 days.
‘The first and
last time’
In Missouri, bouncing a check for more than $150 is a felony
punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Checks for less than that amount are punishable by up to $1,000
fine and one year in the county jail.
Mark Bless, director of the prosecutor’s
collection unit, says jail time is usually a last resort,
reserved for those who have a history of bad checks or who have
written checks in such exorbitant amounts that they can’t hope
to repay them.
Bless says that most county cases are charged
as misdemeanors, even if the bounced checks exceed the $150
felony limit.
"We charge 99 percent of our cases as
misdemeanors, to try to ensure that we’re going to collect for
our merchants," Bless said. "The hard-core criminal
people, fortunately, are few and far between. Most of them are
just people who for one reason or another can’t balance their
checkbooks."
Two women who were paying off their fines at
prosecutor’s office in Hillsboro on Tuesday said they fell
into that category. One of the women, a 20-year-old from St.
Francois County, said her bank had failed to register two of her
deposits. The other, a 30-year-old from Festus, said she had
lost track of the balance in her checking account.
"This is the first and last time,"
she said.
The woman said she was making monthly
payments of $30.88 but couldn’t remember how much she owed.
Reporter Tim Rowden:
E-mail: trowden@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 636-931-1017 |
