Scammers took victims for thousands

PALMER — Three people arrested in connection with a fraud ring this year in Anchorage and Palmer were hit Monday with a 217-count indictment.

Ryan Burkhart, 25, Angie Minnick, 30, and Wendy “Contessa” Remington, 32, were arrested at different points over the fall and winter. Remington was first on Oct. 9, Minnick was last, found hiding under a pile of laundry at a Birchwood-area trailer Dec. 3.

The charges the three now face include theft, criminal impersonation, scheme to defraud, fraudulent use of an access device and forgery. All 217 counts are felonies.

Palmer Police Detective Kelly Turney said the three would use checks they obtained either by breaking into cars or homes or stealing from mail boxes. The forgery counts, more than 50 in all, each represent a forged check he was able to tie to one of the defendants.

“People don’t realize it, but their checkbooks actually have a monetary value in the criminal world,” Turney said.

Turney said the case was charged in Anchorage Superior Court by Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Brittany Dunlop, who did a lot of work putting together the 29-page indictment and the case backing it up. He said the charges relate to thefts and bad checks passed in the Valley, Anchorage and points in between.

The case, he said, took off at about the time Remington was arrested. Soon after that police found a fake ID of Remington’s along with some stolen checks left at a thrift store.

In cases like these, he said, “They slowly start snowballing.”

At some point, Turney said he received a call from detective Tiffani Loughman at the Anchorage Police Department’s property crimes unit. She was trying to find Minnick.

The two started working together and, eventually, Turney said it got to the point where he could look at a check handed over to police and have a very good idea who forged it.

Remington and Minnick, he said, were the target of another fraud investigation he wrapped up in September 2006. In that instance, they were using computers to print out checks with genuine routing numbers but fake account numbers. Minnick was actually on probation for that case when the new forged checks started showing up.

This case, he said, has seemed to focus less on printing out checks than on forging signatures on stolen checks. Most of the time those checks would be passed at area businesses, used to pay for disposable credit cards Minnick and company would then use for general living expenses.

All told, Turney said they probably spent more than $50,000 in a four-month period. And, he said, he has bad checks linked back to 20 separate victims.

“Double or triple that if you throw in the stores,” he said.