A local woman who was found guilty of cashing a forged check has had her conviction tossed because the DA’s office didn’t prove she knew the check was counterfeit, according to the state’s top court.
In this uttering-a-forged-check case, no one disputed that Dominique Oliver walked into the Malden branch of Salem Five Bank and cashed a forged $3,600 check payable to her from a retired nurse’s account.
The only question at trial was whether Oliver knew that the check was forged, and she ended up being convicted of uttering a false check.
But the Supreme Judicial Court has now tossed the conviction out of Malden District Court.
“Because the Commonwealth failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew the check had been forged, the conviction must be reversed,” the SJC wrote in its ruling released on Tuesday.
The case goes back to January of 2019 when Oliver went to Salem Five Bank in Malden, presented her driver’s license, and cashed a personal check made out to her in the amount of $3,600.
The forged check came from the account of retired nurse Eileen Mahoney, and was made out to Oliver’s name as payee. Mahoney testified that she did not know Oliver, and never filled out the forged check.
On the face of the check was Mahoney’s purported signature with a misspelled first name.
The next month, Mahoney was alerted by her bank that her account had been depleted. She then contacted police after discovering that several checks had been drawn on her account without her knowledge or authorization.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office ended up charging Oliver with uttering a forged check and larceny by check.
Mahoney during the trial testified that a caregiver had stolen at least one check from her and had altered others.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the uttering charge, and the Appeals Court affirmed Oliver’s conviction.
When Oliver then appealed the conviction to the Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court looked at whether the evidence was sufficient to prove that Oliver knew the check was forged.
“The Commonwealth contends that the following evidence presented at trial provided sufficient proof of the defendant’s knowledge: (1) the account holder did not know the defendant and had no reason to pay her; (2) the check that the defendant cashed had been stolen ‘recently’; (3) the account holder’s signature on the check was misspelled; and (4) the check was cashed for a ‘rather large’ amount of money,” SJC wrote.
“We conclude that, considered collectively, the evidence is insufficient to allow any rational trier of fact to have determined beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the check was forged,” the state’s top court added.
The Middlesex DA’s Office has maintained that because Mahoney didn’t know Oliver, it’s clear evidence that Oliver knew of the forgery.
But the SJC wrote that it’s “not necessarily unusual” for the recipient of a check and an account holder to be unfamiliar with one another.
When it comes to Mahoney’s signature being misspelled as “Eilleen” instead of “Eileen,” the extra “l” written in cursive is not particularly obvious, according to the SJC.
“Indeed, it seems that neither the bank teller who cashed the check, nor the bank’s record-keeper who testified that the account holder signed it, noticed the inconsistency,” SJC added. “Moreover, the prosecutor did not mention this detail at trial, nor was it raised on appeal.”
Also, the fact that Oliver cashed a check for $3,600, “although perhaps unusual, together with the above-referenced evidence does not permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the check was forged.”
