A Centreville woman pleaded guilty to identity fraud last week in Fairfax County Circuit Court. She is Young Hee Kwon, 47, of 14521 Meeting Camp Road in the Confederate Ridge community.
BEFORE ACCEPTING her plea, Judge Terrence Ney made sure she fully understood the charge against her — and that she was entering her plea, freely and voluntarily, and because she was indeed guilty.
In Jan. 5 affidavits for warrants to search her home and place of business, county Police Officer Scott Neville explained the case against her. He wrote that, on Nov. 20, 2006, an unknown person deposited a check for $3,800 drawn on the Cardinal Bank account of a particular couple. (Centre View is identifying them since they're the victims).
Neville wrote that the check was payable to Yeong Park and deposited into her account at Carrollton Bank. "The check was subsequently rejected when presented for payment at Cardinal Bank [because] it was numbered out of sequence," he wrote. "Further investigation by the banks revealed the check had, in fact, not been issued by the [victims]."
On Nov. 28, the victims contacted Neville about the forgery of their check and said it was cashed without their knowledge or authorization. According to Neville, Park told him she'd gotten the check from Kwon around Nov. 20.
On Jan. 5, he questioned Kwon about it, but he wrote that she gave him two different explanations about how she got it and what she'd done with it. Then, when he arrested her that day, he discovered "she had two additional counterfeit checks [belonging to] the victims that were completely filled out and ready for presentation." Kwon was charged with one count of identity fraud.
POLICE EXECUTED the warrant at Kwon's home, Jan. 5 at 11:13 p.m., and seized several items including a partial checkbook, account numbers, a bank passbook and five checks from four different banks.
The grand jury indicted her May 21 and she pleaded guilty last Monday, June 11. Judge Ney then set her sentencing for Aug. 23.