An Eagleville woman and a West Conshohocken man are facing felony fraud charges after allegedly trying to cash a stolen check at the Merck Sharp and Dohme Federal Credit Union on South Broad Street in Lansdale.
Kayla Burnheter, 26, of Eagleville, and Patrick Stringfield Jr., 24, of West Conshohocken, are both facing felony charges of “access device issued to another who did not authorize use” and receiving stolen property, along with a misdemeanor charge of “possession of access device knowing counterfeit, altered.” The charges result from an incident that occurred on July 9 at 4:24 p.m.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, police were dispatched to the credit union at 4:47 p.m. for a report of someone trying to use a stolen check. Upon arrival, police spoke with two credit union employees, who stated that a woman had attempted to cash a personal check in the amount of $2,800. Due to the amount, one of the employees called the account owner to verify the legitimacy of the check, at which point the account holder stated that they had not issued any checks recently. The woman attempting to cash the check then took the check and left, the report states.
After receiving a description of the female suspect from the credit union employees, police then spoke with the account holders, who verified that they had not written the check. They added, however, that one of them had lost a purse—which also contained blank checks—at a McDonalds in East Norriton on July 8, the report states.
On July 10, Officer Richard Kruppenbach of the Lansdale Borough Police Department received surveillance footage from the credit union, which allegedly showed a female suspect attempting to cash the stolen check while a male suspect attempted to distract an employee, the report states. Kruppenbach, then joined by Lansdale Borough Police Detective Chad Bruckner, utilized WebCPIN facial recognition software to compare still frames from the surveillance video against the state’s database of more than five million arrest/booking photos, allegedly leading to a positive identification for Burnheter via an arrest photo taken a little more than a week earlier by the Upper Merion Township Police Department.
According to the affidavit, Kruppenbach then spoke with an officer from the East Norriton Police Department on July 14, who informed him that a man named Patrick Stringfield had allegedly identified himself as the male suspect in the stolen check surveillance video. The report states that Stringfield then contacted Lansdale Police stating that he was involved in both the theft of the purse at the East Norriton McDonald’s and the attempt to cash the stolen check at the credit union.
On Aug. 11, Kruppenbach received surveillance footage from the East Norriton McDonald’s, which allegedly showed the theft of the purse by Burnheter and Stringfield, corroborating Stringfield’s previous account of the theft.
Both Burnheter and Stringfield were remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility after failing to post bail. They both have preliminary hearings set for Sept. 7 in front of Magesterial District Judge Ed Levine.
See also:
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