Eatonton Police Department cracked another fraudulent checkcashing case, this time arresting three people: two from Dekalb County and one from Clarke County.
A 74-year-old Athens man walked into The Peoples Bank and attempted to cash a check for $760, according to Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell and officer Dennis Tippens.
When Tippens arrived at the bank, the elderly man, later identified as George Franklin, told the officer that two men drove him to Eatonton, gave him the check and dropped him off at the bank. Tippens said Franklin told him the men were waiting for him at McDonald’s, just down the street from the bank’s Eatonton location.
Officer Tippens and Sgt. Howard Clemmons went to McDonald’s and arrested the Sims brothers.
Lamar Jerome Sims Jr., 29, of Glenwood Road, Decatur, and Jaidon Tarique Sims, 20, of Granite Terrace, Lithonia, were arrested around 3:40 p.m. Friday, July 22, on the charge of printing, executing, negotiating, checks, drafts, etc. knowing the information is in error, fictitious. Tippens said the brothers had convinced Franklin to cash the check by offering him around $50 to do so, plus offered him food, “and basically they were just nice to him.”
Cardwell said a check of Franklin through the Georgia Crime Information Center revealed he had an outstanding warrant in Franklin, Tenn.
“He just seemed like a nice, old man, but he had a criminal history that’s longer than a book,” Cardwell said. “Usually, authorities from another state don’t want to come pick up someone we’ve arrested, but the Franklin Police Department showed up the next day to get him.”
George Candy Franklin, 74, of Sycamore Drive, Athens, was charged with identity theft and criminal simulation, and extradited to Franklin Police Department.