Lang
3/7/25
A forged check scheme involving numerous participants has led to a Georgia man’s arrest.
35-year-old Mikal McCarty was booked into the Johnson County Jail just before 3:30 Thursday afternoon. Iowa City Police say McCarty was one of at least six people who used stolen bank information to print and cash or attempt to cash forged checks at various banks around the area in July of 2023.
Investigators say McCarty and his co-conspirators recruited accomplices from homeless shelters and food pantries, paying them $150 a day to attempt to cash forged checks made out to them ranging in amounts from $1,800 to $2,900. The accomplices were given new clothes and burner phones and instructed on how to act and what to say when cashing the checks.
At least four of the checks were cashed successfully, while two others were rejected. The total value of the six checks was over $13,000. Four forged checks were left behind in a vacation rental home in Cedar Rapids which one of the co-defendants had rented over two days.
McCarty is charged with 1st Degree Theft, Conspiracy to Commit a Non-Forcible Felony, and ten counts of Forgery. If convicted on all charges, he faces a maximum of 65 years in prison.
One of the accomplices, 29-year-old Jacob Perrin of Cedar Rapids, was given deferred judgments on theft and forgery charges in June of last year after he admitted to cashing bogus checks in Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty. He failed in attempts to cash checks in Lone Tree, Nichols, Vinton, and LaPorte City.