Check cashing scheme nets charges for three

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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:47AM

VALPARAISO — Three Northwest Indiana residents have been charged for what appears to be tax and personal checks stolen from a Porter County home and cashed in Valparaiso locations in 2011.

Caitlin Stephanie Nicholson, 24, of Crown Point is charged with Class C felony forgery and Class D felony retaining stolen property. Dimitrius Schirato, 21, of Valparaiso has been charged with Class C felony forgery and two counts of Class D felony retaining stolen property. Karam A. Awawda, 25, of Valparaiso has been charged with two Class D felonies, retaining stolen property and theft.

Court records indicate Schirato had possession of a checkbook and a tax check for $16,124 stolen from a home office where a friend of his knew the layout. He tried to cash the tax check April 27 at the Valparaiso Clark Station, where Awawda works, court records state.

The check was marked “pay to the order of Clark” and with a signature that resembled a rubber stamp the victim used in his business. But three days later when the tax check was supposed to have cleared, Awawda told Schirato a bank put a hold on it and police confiscated it.

Police learned this from Nicholson, who said Schirato told her and her boyfriend the story on Aug. 22 when they cashed three stolen checks that exceeded $300.

Awawda told police he kept a $100 per $1,000 fee, and gave Schirato the money three days later. But Awawda’s subpoenaed bank accounts show that two days after he deposited the check in the Clark account, he withdrew $15,000 and then deposited $13,000 into his personal account.

Schirato apparently got the stolen checkbook of the same victim in July.

Nicholson told police she contacted her boyfriend while she was at his home on Aug. 22 and Schirato and her boyfriend persuaded her to use the personal checks to get cash and buy cigarettes. Schirato said he could trade cigarettes for Oxycontin.

After passing a check at Town & Country grocery store on Calumet Avenue, they went to the CVS pharmacy and cashed two more checks, which was caught on surveillance tape.

Schirato told police that Nicholson and her boyfriend contacted him to give them rides around town.

They offered him $20 and some Xanax, and they first went to Wal-Mart to try and buy a laptop, but they didn’t have identification to use the checks, Schirato said.

The boyfriend hasn’t been charged in the matter.