Lisboa
03-24-04, 02:16 PM
The car dealers are still ahead the other million transactions with little old ladies though...
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A 75-year-old woman is suspected of using her age and apparent frailty to fleece about a dozen auto dealers, police and prosecutors said.
Over the past four years, Betty A. Gooch has walked into several Chicago-area dealerships with a cane and an oxygen cart, then paid for cars with bad checks, police said.
"She'll say she's sick and going to be hospitalized, or that her stockbroker is sending the money, or promises they'll have the money next Friday," said Tony Kotlarz, an investigator for the McHenry County state's attorney's office.
In the latest case, Gooch wrote a check for $36,534 for a new Toyota Sienna and another check for $20,041 for a new Toyota Matrix during a November visit to one dealership, said Cook County state's attorney's spokeswoman Marcy Jensen.
Gooch is to be arraigned April 8 on charges of theft by deception and passing bad checks. She is out on bail and declined to comment Tuesday.
Gooch was sentenced to a year of court supervision in October after admitting she wrote a bad check to buy a motorcycle in 2001. She is scheduled to appear in court later this month on charges she wrote a bad $22,000 check last year for a Mazda SUV.
She is being investigated for other possible crimes, police said.
"From the information we've gotten, she has done this in Cook, McHenry and Lake Counties -- about a dozen dealerships," said Elgin police Lt. Cecil Smith.
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A 75-year-old woman is suspected of using her age and apparent frailty to fleece about a dozen auto dealers, police and prosecutors said.
Over the past four years, Betty A. Gooch has walked into several Chicago-area dealerships with a cane and an oxygen cart, then paid for cars with bad checks, police said.
"She'll say she's sick and going to be hospitalized, or that her stockbroker is sending the money, or promises they'll have the money next Friday," said Tony Kotlarz, an investigator for the McHenry County state's attorney's office.
In the latest case, Gooch wrote a check for $36,534 for a new Toyota Sienna and another check for $20,041 for a new Toyota Matrix during a November visit to one dealership, said Cook County state's attorney's spokeswoman Marcy Jensen.
Gooch is to be arraigned April 8 on charges of theft by deception and passing bad checks. She is out on bail and declined to comment Tuesday.
Gooch was sentenced to a year of court supervision in October after admitting she wrote a bad check to buy a motorcycle in 2001. She is scheduled to appear in court later this month on charges she wrote a bad $22,000 check last year for a Mazda SUV.
She is being investigated for other possible crimes, police said.
"From the information we've gotten, she has done this in Cook, McHenry and Lake Counties -- about a dozen dealerships," said Elgin police Lt. Cecil Smith.