(File Photo of a Dollar Sign)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Moon Township, PA) A man is now facing charges after authorities said he altered and cashed checks that were placed in the mailboxes of an 87-year-old man in Moon Township and Ross Township fire officials. 

According to a criminal complaint, officers were dispatched on August 3rd to a home along Jamestown Road in Moon Township following reports of a theft. 

Officials arrived at the scene and found that the victim received a phone call from his financial institution, who requested to speak to authorities on scene. 

A fraud investigator with the victim’s bank, Clearview Federal Credit Union, told officers they had talked with him before police arrived after suspecting that he was a victim of fraud. 

The investigator stated that three checks were drawn from the victim’s account and were made payable to the same individual, “Rasheed Dawson,” who the victim said was not the intended recipient. 

The victim later told police that the three checks were written so he could pay several bills and they had been placed in the mailbox outside his home. 

It was determined that the checks did not reach the destinations that they were intended to go to, even though they were drawn against his account for about $8,005. 

The original amount of one check to Mastercard was unknown and was altered to $2,362.46. The complaint confirmed that a check for $178.18 to Duquesne Light was changed to $3,300.25, and a $1,394.25 check to State Farm was changed to $2,342.25.

The payee on all three of them was changed to the name of a Clearview account holder, who is not charged. 

According to the complaint, the suspect was later identified as 26-year-old Jaden McDougald.

He was seen on three video banking sessions identifying himself as the holder of the account and depositing the checks of the victim into the Clearview account. 

Police detailed the purchases and transactions in which the cash was withdrawn from the account. 

According to the complaint, officials also said that in Ross Township, a check to a garage door company for $8,383, which the township’s fire police had placed in a mailbox outside the West View post office, was altered and deposited.

McDougald was charged in connection with that altered check and charges were filed against him by Ross Township police on Monday.

McDougald is now facing several charges, including forgery, identity theft and theft by deception.