Man on trial for check scams

August 20, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

PALMER - A North Pole man is on trial in Palmer Superior Court for preying on Valley residents, forging identities and cashing bogus checks in December.

John Bo Phillips, 23, was charged with four counts of first-degree criminal impersonation, five counts of second-degree forgery, three counts of second-degree theft, one count of fraudulent use of an access device and three counts of third-degree theft.

Phillips was one of two people indicted in Palmer in February and eight indicted in Fairbanks for stealing mail from unsecured mailboxes to create fake identities and phony checks. While most of the defendants cashed checks in their hometowns, investigators say Phillips used bum checks to make purchases from Circle City to Valdez.

On Thursday, the jury listened to a recording of Phillips' interview with Pearl Holston, a Fairbanks police investigator who told Phillips she heard he was &#8220wicked smart” and bright.

&#8220This is where I take my glory and some pride in some respects,” Phillips said in the interview. &#8220I was never a dumb a— that would leave like a check at the local coffee cart. I was, ‘Go big or go home.'”

Any jackass could rip off a mailbox, Phillips told Holston.

In addition to not cashing small checks, Phillips explained to Holston that he wouldn't operate in a small place like North Pole, where everyone knew everyone else and his face would be recognized. Cashing phony checks never scared him, Phillips said.

&#8220I never failed,” he said. &#8220Clerks can't do sh—. You have to go through a mind set that it is yours. I was just too successful. It was too easy.”

It was so easy, police identified about 500 victims of Phillips and his cohorts' spree, and put a value of $300,000 to $500,000 on goods they bought in their victims' names.

Lyle Stohler, Phillips' appointed attorney, pointed out that the 500 victims were not all Phillips' doing.

Andrew Parkerson-Gray of Fairbanks took the witness stand as one of Phillips' victims. Parkerson-Gray had several Discover Card convenience checks stolen from his unlocked mail box on Goldstream Road north of Fairbanks.

&#8220It has a lock on it now,” Parkerson-Gray said.

He was unaware of the theft until he received a call from James Gipson, a Palmer police officer, Parkerson-Gray said. Gipson said he found identification and checks in the name of Andrew Mike Gray and that he should call Discover Card and ask to verify some transactions. Parkerson-Gray told the jury his middle name is Michael, and he had changed his name from Gray to Parkerson-Gray a few months before the call from Gipson.

As a result of the theft of four checks, he lost a lot of time from work and spent a lot of time on the phone over a four-month period, Parkerson-Gray said. He had to put a block on his credit cards, call credit card companies more than a dozen times, put a security hold on his lines of credit and reissue all his accounts, he said.

When Gipson stopped Phillips for reckless driving in December, he noticed a shotgun, which gave him cause to search the Bronco for other weapons. Gipson found fake identifications and checks with different names, and he initiated an investigation that eventually involved Kelly Turney, a Palmer police detective; Holston, Turney's sister and counterpart with the Fairbanks police; the North Pole police, Alaska Bureau of Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The trial is scheduled to continue through the early part of next week. It is an expensive trial for the state, said Suzanne Powell, assistant district attorney. Holston and Parkerson-Gray were brought down from Fairbanks, and another victim from Fairbanks and one from Prudhoe Bay will testify next week, she said.

&#8220Officer Gipson did a good initial investigation,” Powell said. &#8220He's a good officer.”

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.