The criminal case against a Centreville woman is moving forward in the legal system. She is Young Hee Kwon, 47, of 14521 Meeting Camp Road in the Confederate Ridge community, and she's accused of identity fraud.
Fairfax County Police Officer Scott Neville, of the Financial Crimes section, explained the case against her in Jan. 5 affidavits for warrants to search her home and place of business.
He wrote that, on Nov. 20, 2006, an unknown person deposited a check for $3,800 drawn on the Cardinal Bank account of a particular couple. (Centre View is not identifying them since they're the victims).
Neville stated that the check was payable to Yeong Park and was deposited to her account at Carrollton Bank. "The check was subsequently rejected when presented for payment at Cardinal Bank [because] it was numbered out of sequence," he wrote. "Further investigation by the banks revealed the check had, in fact, not been issued by the [victims]."
On Nov. 28, the victims contacted Neville about the forgery of their check — which was now also considered counterfeit. They said the $3,800 check was cashed without their knowledge or authorization.
Park was the payee on that check and, wrote Neville, "Park stated that on or about Nov. 20, she [reportedly] received the check from Kwon and deposited [it in] her account." So on Jan. 5, the detective questioned Kwon about the check.
"Kwon stated she had received [that] check from her accountant," wrote Neville. "Kwon then stated she had given the check to Park completely filled out. Kwon then changed her explanation and stated she had uttered the check to Park ... blank."
INVESTIGATING KWON'S criminal history, Neville discovered that Prince William County had seven outstanding warrants for her arrest, charging her with issuing worthless checks. So on Jan. 5, Neville took her into custody pursuant to these warrants.
Then during a search of Kwon's purse, incident to her arrest, Neville allegedly discovered "she had two additional counterfeit checks [belonging to] the victims that were completely filled out and ready for presentation." She was charged with one count of identity fraud in Fairfax County.
Police executed the warrant at Kwon's home, Jan. 5 at 11:13 p.m., and seized a folder containing account and routing numbers, miscellaneous letters and checks, receipts and a partial checkbook, a Virginia driver's license copy with account numbers, an address book, a bank passbook and five checks from four different banks.
Kwon appeared last Monday, April 2, in Fairfax County General District Court. At that time, Judge Lisa Mayne certified the identity-fraud charge against her to the grand jury for possible indictment.