A rural Mountain Home man accused of attempting to cash a stolen check made out for $3,000 pled guilty to the charges against him during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Thirty-two-year-old Dustin Sandoval, who lists an address along State Highway 201 South, is charged with forgery and theft by receiving. After entering his plea, Sandoval was sentenced to 10 years probation.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the checks were stolen out of a mailbox by others. In all, mail from six mailboxes was taken in late January.
Investigators said pieces of the stolen mail were located by a postal employee in the Sherwood Hills area of Mountain Home.
A new supply of blank checks had been delivered to one victim and the plastic wrapping in which the checks came was located. It had been torn open and the contents removed. The victim notified his bank of the theft.
On January 27, the victim notified law enforcement that someone had attempted to cash one of the stolen checks at a branch bank in Gassville.
Investigators obtained a photo of a silver Dodge Durango occupied by one person in a drive-thru lane at the bank. The photo was taken on January 26 at 2:04 p.m.
The person in the vehicle was identified as Sandoval and the check was made to him for $3,000. Sandoval was reported to have used his own driver’s license information as identification. A bank employee refused to complete the transaction.
Sandoval was interviewed on February 8. He said he had obtained the checks from Tyler Dudley and Whitney Townsend. He said Townsend filled out the check and he drove to the bank to try and cash it.
The vehicle he used had been borrowed from a neighbor, Sandoval told investigators. Also on February 8, an investigator contacted the neighbor and she verified she had loaned Sandoval her Dodge Durango twice in the recent past.
Dudley and Townsend face a combined total of 163 counts of wrongdoing in criminal cases opened on them in Baxter and Marion counties.
The charges include breaking or entering, theft of property, forgery, commercial burglary, simultaneously possessing guns and drugs, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia andresidential burglary.
The simultaneous possession charge is a Class Y felony, the most serious classification of crime in Arkansas not punishable by death. A person can face life in prison if convicted of a Class Y felony.
Both are accused of driving down streets, pulling up to mailboxes and taking the mail inside. The mail thefts also led to stealing blank checks and debit/credit cards.
They were once found with an air compressor that had been reported stolen from a residence in Yellville.
According to court records, the crimes allegedly committed by the pair took place in a fairly short time span in 2022-2023.
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