A Schuylkill County man is now facing additional forgery charges because police allege he stole checks from a friend and used them to pay off a loan, pay rent, and for miscellaneous purposes.
Court documents show that on Aug. 15, police in Pottsville spoke with a man who said he was missing nearly $1,500 from his bank account. While going through his bank statement to find a reason for the missing money, he found four fraudulent transactions.
The victim showed police copies of four checks that he said he didn’t write. A look at the handwriting on the checks compared to the victim’s, police say, confirmed that it was not he who wrote the checks.
Of the four checks suspected of being stolen, two were written to one man as payment for a loan. The first check was for $440 and marked “Loan Partial” on the Note line. The second was made out for $275 to the same person and marked “Loan Paid in Full”.
A third check was also written to the same person, this for $360 and marked “Misc.” and a fourth was also made out to the same recipient, for $710 and marked for rent.
The victim told police he didn’t know the person to whom the checks were written. Police did speak with the recipient and he said that check forging is an offense for which Christopher Harper is known.
Indeed, Harper just appeared in District Court recently on charges that he had in his possession stolen checks from a Schuylkill County business that was robbed.
The victim of this most recent incident told police that Harper is his friend and that he’d been in his apartment about 10 days prior to the discovery of the fraudulent transactions.
Police say they spoke with Harper at Schuylkill County Prison, where he’s incarcerated, and he allegedly admitted to stealing his friend’s checks and signing them with his friend’s name.
Harper is now facing an additional three counts of forgery, one count of them and one count of receiving stolen property.
ORIGINAL REPORT:
Schuylkill County Man Accused of Driving Stolen Vehicle, Forging Checks from April Burglary
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Luis Tricol
September 9, 2025 at 3:34 am
That “same person,” MM was the ring leader and is just as guilty.