Three charged in casino forgery scheme

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 11:30 a.m.

The three are charged with bank fraud and counterfeiting.

Kenneth Alex, 31, Kelly Lewis, 28, and Sheila Gallaway, 38, all of Houston, Texas, are accused of cashing a fake $46,500 cashier's check at the Grand Casino on Nov. 19. The trio is suspected of unsuccessfully trying to cash another fake check at Treasure Bay Casino on Nov. 20, according to the U.S. Secret Service.

The suspects took photos to "an insider in the Texas Department of Public Safety in Houston," said Larry Rowlett, special agent in charge of the Secret Service in Mississippi.

The three got "genuine" driver's licenses with other people's names, and then got a computer operator to make fake cashier's checks written in the amount of $46,500, Rowlett said. The checks also had a fake bank's name.

First the trio went to Grand Casino, where Alex went inside while the others waited outside in a car with a cell phone and computer, Rowlett said.

When Alex gave the teller the check, the teller called the telephone number for the bank. Lewis answered on the cellular phone, Rowlett said, clicked on the computer keyboard as if she was checking bank records, then verified the check.

The teller gave $46,500 in markers to the subject, who played about $2,000 to $3,000 worth, and got the remainder in cash and left, the Secret Service said.

At Treasure Bay, Rowlett said a teller got suspicious when she called the bank and got a recording. Gallaway ran out but she and the others were captured, Rowlett said.

When the teller got suspicious she notified casino security and surveillance personnel, said Bob Peyton, Treasure Bay's assistant general manager.

"We were really fortunate," Peyton said.

Jean Wiesenburg, spokeswoman for Grand Casino, would not comment, saying company policy prohibits comment on criminal investigations.