By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - Staff Writer - mtrax@starbeacon.com
GENEVA — A Cleveland woman will face three felony charges in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court after she attempted to withdraw $4,500 out of someone else’s bank account at three First Merit Bank branches in Ashtabula County, Geneva police reports show.
Bank tellers at the First Merit Bank on South Broadway became suspicious Wednesday when Sheila Barb, 48, tried to withdraw funds from an account held by an Elyria woman, police reports show.
“(Barb) had been to two other First Merit banks,” Geneva Patrol Officer Doug Emmett said. “When the bank tellers in Ashtabula and the harbor told her they were going to have a signature card faxed for signature verification, she took off.”
When Barb saw the Geneva bank manager talking with the officers, she told the teller she “forgot something in her car” and tried to leave, Emmett said.
After talking with the officers, Barb revealed her identity and said she got a fake driver’s license in the victim’s name “for $20 from some guy in Cleveland,” police reports show.
Barb also told officers she was “going through some hard times” with her sick mother and other personal issues and “has no money,” Emmett reported.
Barb was arrested and taken to the Geneva City Jail, where she was booked on felony charges of obstruction of justice, forgery and identity theft, police reports show.
Barb faced a preliminary hearing on the charges in Western County Court on Monday, where her bond was modified to $5,000, but she did not post the money, Western County Court records show.
The case was bound over to Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court, court records show.
