On September 27, 2024, JEWEL DEAN ELLIS [DOB REDACTED] cashed a fictitious check at the Building Trades Federal Credit Union (“Credit Union”) located at [ADDRESS REDACTED], Shoreview, Ramsey County, Minnesota. The check was in the amount of $29,700.00 and payable to ELLIS. ELLIS told the teller that she worked as a “contractor” and that the check was for a future project. The payor of the check was a financial institution based in Florida. The teller accepted the check and started the process of depositing the funds into ELLIS’s “CashApp” account.
The financial institution contacted the Credit Union and reported that the check was fake. The financial institution attempted to pull the funds back, were only partially successful in pulling $24,104.96 back. The remainder had successfully been deposited into ELLIS’s “CashApp” account. The Credit Union recognized ELLIS from previous interactions at the bank when she had deposited checks. Police also compared surveillance video of ELLIS depositing the check to her driver’s license photograph and concluded that ELLIS was the person who deposited the fictitious check.
Police obtained deposit records for ELLIS’s “CashApp” account. The name on the account was “Jewel Ellis” and the date of birth was listed as “1989-04-21. The deposit records showed that at least $5,600 were successfully deposited into the account as a result of this fraudulent transaction.
