A warrant was issued today for a suspect without a current, active license who has no known established address or phone who is accused of taking, forging and cashing checks to steal $4,855 from an elderly man who is restricted to a wheelchair.

Donald R. Rollins, January 2018 Mug Shot from File

Donald Richard Rollins, 48, is wanted on preliminary charges of six felony counts including forgery and theft as a result of an investigation by Det. Sgt. James O’Malley of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department.

This investigation started on December 13 when GCSD Deputy David Elmore took a report from the elderly man’s son who contacted the sheriff’s department about a theft. The son said someone had stolen several bank checks from his father and cashed them. Deputy Elmore forwarded the case on to Det. Sgt. O’Malley.

The son said as power of attorney, he periodically checks his father’s account and transactions and he had discovered several checks issued on his father’s account had been written to Rollins, but his father did not write these checks. The son said his father banks at Farmers & Mechanics Federal Savings Bank in Bloomfield.

Det. O’Malley visited with the elderly man at his home in the Newberry area. The man is 89 years old and is restricted to a wheelchair but heats his home with wood.

O’Malley said the man told him sometime around the beginning of June, he hired Rollins to cut, split and stack firewood. During this time, he let Rollins move a small camper onto the man’s property to stay in while he was working. He also let Rollins run an extension cord to the camper to provide him with electricity.

O’Malley said the man told him he paid Rollins $10 an hour and always paid him in cash. O’Malley said the man was “adamant” that he never wrote a check to Rollins. He said he keeps his checkbook on the dash of his vehicle or on his kitchen table.

O’Malley continued his investigation at Farmers & Mechanics Bank where personnel were able to determine the checks were cashed at Crane Credit Union in Linton.

At Crane Credit Union, the bank provided O’Malley with video footage of the various transactions which O’Malley said showed dates and times when the checks were presented and showed Rollins entering the bank, presenting checks, giving his identification to tellers, getting paid, exiting the bank and driving away.

O’Malley reported a total of 15 checks were written to Rollins, all with “labor” written in the memo area, all endorsed by Rollins. Of note, O’Malley said the first one of these checks to be presented, in the amount of $200, had the man’s name spelled wrong in the signature.

Of these 15 checks, one was cashed on August 16, then two more in October, eight in November, plus four in December in amounts ranging from $150 to $550 for a total of $4,855.

In the probable cause affidavit prepared by O’Malley, he wrote that he’d made several attempts to contact Rollins with no success and added that Rollins does not have a current active driver’s license and does not have an established address or telephone.

Earlier today, Thursday, December 20, Greene County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Keven McIntosh filed a criminal case against Rollins on preliminary charges of: