Adrian police: Crime ring conducted retail, check fraud
ADRIAN MI June 2 2019 — Adrian police say they have made arrests in a retail and check fraud crime ring that was working in Lenawee and Jackson counties earlier this year.
Those charged include Austin Keith Richardson, who has already been arraigned on felony counts of organized retail crime and using computers to commit a felony punishable by four to 10 years in prison. The 24-year-old from Adrian waived a preliminary examination in the case and has been bound over to Lenawee County Circuit Court for further proceedings. He is also charged in the murder of Christopher Dickerson of Weston in January.
Jamie Nicole Furgason, 24, of Britton was arraigned Friday in Lenawee County District Court on one felony charge of conducting criminal enterprises.
Angela Lynn Scott, 44, of Onsted, is awaiting a hearing Wednesday in district court on a felony charge of conducting criminal enterprises.
Police said Coty Daniel Sexton-Fleming, 31, of Manitou Beach is scheduled to be arraigned by video Friday, June 7, in district court. He is currently incarcerated at the Michigan Department of Correction’s Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson. He was sentenced May 8 in Jackson County Circuit Court to serve 17 months to four years in prison on a charge of stealing or retaining a financial transaction device without consent, according to corrections department online records.
In the charge against Furgason, police allege she and Sexton-Fleming were in a romantic relationship. Police stated he asked her to open several checking accounts in the Adrian area in order to defraud the banks and taught her how to do it, according to a probable-cause statement in her court file. Police say she then wrote checks that exceeded the amount deposited into the accounts and totaled more than $3,500. The items bought with the checks at local stores then were either sold by Sexton-Fleming or consumed by him, Furgason or Scott.
In Richardson’s retail crime case, investigators allege he worked with Sexton-Fleming and another person, who has not been charged, to shoplift items from area stores in exchange for money or drugs.
“Other suspects have been identified as part of this ring and the investigation is ongoing,” Friday’s news release from the Adrian Police Department said.
Adrian police were assisted in the investigation by the Cambridge Township Police Department, the Blissfield Police Department, the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office, and the Michigan State Police, the release said.
Daily Telegram
