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HomeMy WebLinkAbout23006207 (2) On March 3/6/2024, Detective Eric Strassner and I met with Maleacka Browne and Matthew Booth regarding the fraud they reported against Juan Carlos Deleon Alvarado. They are alleging their bank accounts are in the negative all due to Mr. Deleon Alvarado. Det. Strassner is also working on a case where these two are suspects in check fraud. Throughout the interview these two jumped around with their statements. The following is what they told us. There is no way to put this in any kind of chronological order. They shared with us that the two of them are boyfriend and girlfriend and were living at the Princeton address the entire time this was going on. They said all this started with M. Booth; he had known Mr. Deleon Alvardo for a few years because he was his neighbor. M. Booth said he purchased a pickup from him and had planned on starting a mechanics shop together. He said he had all the tools and Mr. Deleon Alvarado was looking for a shop. M. Booth said he and Mr. Deleon Alvarado were business partners and he had to sell his Toyota so they could have money to get the business started. He said he gave Mr. Deleon Alvarado all his money, which was $1,000. He said while this business was in the works, he was doing side jobs for him and then Mr. Deleon Alvarado hired Ms. Browne to be his accountant. Ms. Browne said she had never heard of Mr. Deleon Alvarado’s business and couldn’t find much online about it. She said this should have been a red flag right there. M. Booth said it was a semi business called Custom Transport LLC. He also said the mechanic shop they were starting was called M & M Auto Repair. Ms. Browne said before the mechanic shop got going, she started to do the books for Mr. Deleon Alvarado’s debit cards. She said he would call her and tell her what to write in the book, how much he spent. She said they also dealt with Mr. Deleon Alvarado about a house he owned, and they were going to rent it. She said he was doing renovations, and they were waiting to be able to move in. She said he would promise them stuff and never follow through. He also would hang it over their heads. Ms. Browne said it wasn’t until Kaleb Scott’s mom brought their friend group together and discussed what was going on with Mr. Deleon Alvarado. They all tried to figure out where things went wrong and they finally decided to contact the police because their account is still -$40,000 and M. Booth’s twin brother, Devon Booth’s is -$12,000. M. Booth said he did sell his truck to Mr. Deleon Alvarado, but he got it back. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado sold the truck to someone else. However, he took the truck and gave Mr. Deleon Alvarado his money back. He claimed the truck was hiding at his storage unit. M. Booth said he owned a bunch of Toyota’s, a couple 1982’s and a couple 1984’s and one 1983. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado took his brother’s 350Z and then sold it. He said a bunch of their money went into trucks and stuff like that. He bought a Toyota Cressida 89 MX83 through someone that bought it from overseas. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado picked it up for him and he’s never seen the car. He described this as a rare car, the first drift car ever made. Ms. Browne said Mr. Deleon Alvarado would hold vehicles over their heads. He would tell them; you’ll get it this day or that day. She said they realized doing business with Mr. Deleon Alvarado was turning out to be something they didn’t want to be a part of. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado drives a Kenworth semi and runs from Las Vegas to Montana. He hauled whatever someone wanted him to haul. Most of the time it’s cars or car parts. M. Booth said he drove to SLC one time to see what he was hauling. Det. Strassner asked Ms. Browne if she had any background in accounting. She said she has always loved Math and always wanted to be an accountant but has had no schooling. She explained that Mr. Deleon Alvarado asked her what she wanted to do when she gets older, and she brought up accounting. He told her, “Cool, I need someone to do my books and I could teach you a little bit.” She said she thought it would be fun to get to know more about it. She said her hire date was 10/27/23. She said she would work from home, and he would call her and tell her over the phone what to write in a ledger book. Det. Strassner asked where the million-dollar numbers came from. She said she didn’t know she just wrote what he told her because she never saw any bank accounts, therefore it was only his word. She said she wondered where the money came from as well. She said he told her he was keeping the same book. It was asked why he would need her then and this information didn’t make sense. She agreed and said it was starting to become confusing. She was supposed to be getting paid $1,500. every 2 weeks for writing down what he told her to write. She said she never got that money and that’s when she decided she was done. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado would have him pick up cars for him. Mr. Deleon Alvarado gave him $10,000 checks and reassured him they would go through. He said one time he took the money and drove to SLC and bought a G35 and brought it back. Otherwise, he would meet Mr. Deleon Alvardo while he was loading and give him the cash. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado would tell him what amount of money to give him from the checks he’d cashed. He didn’t know what he did with the money. Det. Strassner asked him why he would do this. M. Booth said because Mr. Deleon Alvarado had an online bank account and couldn’t stop by a branch to withdraw money, or he was out of town and couldn’t. I asked out of a $10,000 check how much was supposed to go to him. Ms. Browne responded, “Maybe like a $100 to get back home and that happened a couple times.” She also said, “If you look at the books, you are like that will definitely go through. It would never go through, and he would sit there and argue with us.” When we spoke to them about their checks, they said the checks were actual checks from Ms. Browne’s First Federal account. They did not make any checks. M. Booth said they had different bank accounts at the time. He also said that after a $9,000 check didn’t clear his account, First Federal Bank closed that account. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado had them write their own checks. He said at some banks you couldn’t cash it and get the money right away, you had to wait seven days. He said at his Mountain America Bank, they would cash it at the time. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado told him to cash it at Mountain America then transfer the money to the First Federal account and then go get it out. Det. Strassner asked M. Booth why he would do that, he said, “It sounded right to me at the time.” He also said Mr. Deleon Alvarado needed the money right then. Mountain America would give the money right then. M. Booth said if he didn’t give him the money, Mr. Deleon Alvarado would take his car. He has the title to both of their vehicles. Det. Strassner told them he understood they got themselves in a world of financial trouble. He advised them that they didn’t have to speak to us if they didn’t want to. He did inform them that whatever they told us, they would be able to leave the police department that day. He said you guys started this check stuff at the beginning of October. The reason you came to file the report is because you received a letter from Mountain America saying you guys are -$36,000. You filed this to get ahead of the game. Ms. Browne said she didn’t know they filed a report. Det. Strassner held a copy of the notice mailed to them and it had both their names on it. M. Booth agreed that they did file the fraud report afterwards because they had no idea it was fraud. M. Booth said he had a Mountain America account a few months before he met Mr. Deleon Alvarado and now it’s closed because of all this, and he can’t pay on his loan and car loan. Det. Strassner told them to remove Mr. Deleon Alvarado from everything and asked why they would write checks to themselves. He told them every one of these were on video and obviously it was them because they reported it. He said M. Booth was doing this check stuff before Ms. Browne started as the accountant. Ms. Browne said she could have the dates wrong of when she started. Ms. Browne said she added M. Booth to her bank account at some point because they were together. They planned to have his mechanic paychecks go in their joint account. She also talked about how she recently got an ICCU bank account after she filed the police report. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado told them he would pay them when he got back to town, and he never did. He said they did try to figure it out with the bank but never got it resolved. He claimed he and Mr. Deleon Alvarado had many three-way calls. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado told the bank and Mr. Booth that his bank was pulling more money out of his account than what the check was made for. Mr. Deleon Alvarado claimed that the money was pulled a duplicate time from his account. I obtained the folder of all the documents Ms. Browne provided as evidence. There were copies of text messages from Mr. Deleon Alvarado asking where the money was. I asked them to tell me more about what that meant. They said Mr. Deleon Alvarado was asking for more money to finish the house and the red cat eye truck. I asked what else was in this folder because it didn’t seem to support their claims. While I was holding some copies of checks, Ms. Browne said while pointing to one check from Mr. Deleon Alvarado, this one was for parts for the “Z” but never went through. When we reviewed the copies of checks they were asked why in a span of two days did they cash two $15,000 checks. That was $30,000. Det. Strassner told M. Booth, he watched him on video walk out of the bank with $15,000 cash in hand with a smile on his face. M. Booth said he got maybe $1,000 tops out of that. When asked what was written on the check on the bottom left to indicate what the check was for, M. Booth couldn’t read it. Ms. Browne said it depended on who was writing these checks. She couldn’t tell what it was written for either, she said maybe it said “parts”. Det. Strassner said most people would remember what they wrote a $15,000 check for. Ms. Brown then thought is said paychecks and she said that’s what Mr. Deleon Alvarado said to write. It was asked where the checks are written in the ledger. Ms. Browne said they should be written down, but she couldn’t find them. M. Booth said the money would be given to Mr. Deleon Alvarado. He said Mr. Deleon Alvarado claimed the checks he wrote to them would cover the amount of the funds they had given him. There was a discussion about the different amounts of checks and how they were continuously trying to cover their losses and how it didn’t make sense. They were asked after the first check why they didn’t feel this was not right. They tried saying from their understanding, the second check that was written was to cover for the first one. After telling them numerous times this didn’t make sense, they agreed that it didn’t make sense to them either. The question was asked about within two days $30,000 was withdrawn and they claimed they gave all that money to Mr. Deleon Alvarado, why did he need more money. M. Booth said there was an issue with the bank, and they needed to wait 60 days for everything to catch up or clear. They said Mr. Deleon Alvarado would tell them he didn’t have another 60 days and he needed money for his wife. I asked why they wouldn’t finally put their foot down and tell Mr. Deleon Alvarado that wasn’t their problem. They didn’t know why. Det. Strassner said none of this had anything to do with a trucking business or mechanic shop. One portion of their evidence was text messages from Mr. Deleon Alvarado asking for more money. M. Booth said Mr. Deleon Alvarado claimed he needed money because his semi broke down. M. Booth said they were business partners. They were told these conversations don’t support anything regarding check fraud. The messages from Mr. Deleon Alvarado were basically asking them where they were and why they were doing certain things and how all he’s tried to do is help them. We told them they weren’t forced to do any of this. Mr. Deleon Alvarado did not threaten them or tell them he was going to kill them. There’s no proof that he did anything wrong. These messages show that he’s asking for money, and they willingly gave it to him. The amounts he’s asking for his nothing compared to the money being pulled out of the accounts. M. Booth said when it came down to anything over a couple thousand dollars, he would call them. He wouldn’t discuss that over text message. Devon Booth and Kaleb Scott’s names were mentioned in the paperwork in the folder. We asked who they were. They said Mr. Deleon Alvarado roped M. Booth’s brother, Devon Booth, into all this as well. They provided recipes for paving a sidewalk at his house. They paid for the materials, and he never paid them back. This didn’t have anything to do with the negative amounts on the bank. They provided a Mountain America letter sent to Mr. Scott, but not the letter they received. This letter to Mr. Scott was dated 11/24/23. They filed the police report on 12/2/23. Det. Strassner stated to Ms. Browne that she claimed to be an accountant for a company that we don’t even know exists and that they just kept talking about personal cars and trucks regarding the checks. It was brought up that the dates on the checks were before she claimed to go to work for him. She was also asked what kind of work it is where someone is calling you and telling you to write stuff down. Ms. Browne said, “I thought I was learning something but apparently not.” Det. Strassner asked M. Booth if they had a business license and he said no, they were getting ready to get a license. Det. Strassner told him because they had no LLC, this money had nothing to do with the business. He also asked what Mr. Deleon Alvarado was going to tell us when we get his version of events. Ms. Browne said, “I’m sure it was all our fault.” He also asked why there was an amount for $999. M. Booth said that was his loan for his pickup before he even met Mr. Deleon Alvarado. He said it was $1,000 but it took one dollar to start the loan. M. Booth said they did try to figure this out and resolve it with the bank. They had many three-way calls. Mr. Deleon Alvarado claimed that the money was pulled out a duplicate time from his account. Ms. Browne said none of Mr. Deleon Alvarado’s checks went through. As the interview came to an end, Det. Strassner and I said to them that none of the information supported their claims that Mr. Deleon Alvarado made them do this. They weren’t forced to do any of this. Mr. Deleon Alvarado did not threaten them or tell them he was going to kill them if they didn’t cash these checks and give him the money. The bank brought this to us, and they tried to sort it out. Bring it to the police before they get in trouble. They were told the bottom line was they presented $15,000 checks to the bank for payment knowing there was no funds to cover. And it wasn’t until Mr. Scott’s parents told them to go to the police that they did. I said to them they were scamming the bank and they said they see what we are saying. Ms. Browne said, “Carlos is good at what he does”. They were informed that charges were going to be filed against them. We encouraged them to have D. Booth and Mr. Scott come talk to us if they wanted. I later contacted Mr. Deleon Alvarado by phone and asked if he would be willing to come speak to me regarding his involvement with M. Booth and Ms. Browne. I told him they told me that he made them commit check fraud. They were stating that he told them to write checks to themselves and cash them and then give him the money. Then you wrote them checks to refund the money they gave you and those never went through. I told him I wanted to meet with him sometime and get his side of the story. He said he is a truck driver and would be back in Idaho in three weeks. I told him I was interested in hearing about his trucking business, also about him hiring Ms. Browne to be his accountant. He said he didn’t have a trucking company nor an accountant. I said these were the things that I wanted him to tell me about. While he was on the phone, I decided to ask him a few things where he wasn’t going to be able to come in for some time. I asked him if he was ever going to open a mechanic shop with M. Booth. He said no. I said I wanted to know where all this was coming from, and he said he wanted to know as well. I told him I had checks that looked like he had written them, and I wanted to have him look at them and tell me what they were for. He said he bought a car from them and traded a car too. He said then one vehicle went missing, and he told them he wouldn’t press charges if they just gave it back, but they never did. I told him Ms. Browne provided a ledger book and he was supposedly paying her $1,500 every two weeks to do your books. He said, “Who uses a ledger book these days?” I said she did, and she gave it to us. It’s allegedly of all your accounts. He said, “I don’t even have any accounts. This is a joke?” I told him I needed to get him off the hook for any of this and he said, “I shouldn’t be on the hook for anything especially when they have grand theft auto. They took my car and a pink pickup never got paid for it and they stole it off my property. I never have pressed charges because they are young kids but if they want to play this, I can play the same game.” He also said, “Well, I’ll go ahead and press charges. If this is the case, this is ridiculous.” I explained to Mr. Deleon Alvarado it would be painless to just come in and meet with me. I told him I would show him paperwork and copies of the checks and he could simply tell me what they are. Mr. Deleon Alvarado asked if he needed a lawyer for this because it sounded “pretty serious”. He also asked me how you get someone to commit fraud, “was I holding a gun to their head or something”. I told him I just wanted him to come make heads or tails of what these documents were. I said we obviously have them going into the bank by themselves, but they are all claiming you had them do it and they had to give you the money afterwards. Their accounts are in the negative now because you never gave them the money that you promised them. You gave them a couple of checks, but they never funded. And you never gave them back the money that they gave you. He asked me if there was proof that they gave him the money. I told him no, and that’s what I want to get on record, is his response to these statements. He said we can do that right now over the phone. He said, “I’m not going to lose my income over some childish bull crap.” I asked how I was going to show him the documents over the phone. I told him he needed to be present. Mr. Deleon Alvarado started to talk about how he made a deal on a pink pickup 353 Z Nissan, and they loaded it up and took it from him. He said he hadn’t received anything from them, and he never pressed charges. He said, “I didn’t want to ruin the rest of their life with a grand theft auto charge. I’m over here trying to be nice about things and they completely cut ties with me and then I get this phone call that’s kind of crazy.” I informed him that the time of this complaint took place back in October and November or 2023. He said he thought he wrote one or two checks, and he wasn’t receiving his stuff, so he put a stop payment on them. Mr. Deleon Alvarado said he would be willing to meet me when he returned to the area, and he would contact me once he was back in town. I then received a call from Mr. Deleon Alvarado’s fiancé. She said her fiancé got a call from me yesterday and she wanted to verify that it was real and not a scam. I confirmed with her it was real and I was working on a case involving Mr. Deleon Alvarado and I needed to meet with him to ask him questions about his business, some friends, and some checks. She felt better about calling the detective to find out it was not a scam. A few days later, I received a call from Mr. Deleon Alvarado. He said he was not back yet, however, he wanted to inform me he got a call from M. Booth. He said M. Booth wanted to meet up with him. He said he told him he received a phone call from a detective, and he didn’t have anything to say to him. Mr. Deleon Alvarado was wondering if M. Booth was trying to get him to say stuff and he didn’t know what he was talking about. He said he finally resorted to telling M. Booth to contact the detective and they can relay it to him. Mr. Deleon Alvarado said he thinks these kids are in over their heads and trying to point the blame on someone else. He said M. Booth denied knowing Detective Matthews. He told him that’s funny because she told me she talked to you guys. He ended by saying he’ll contact me when he gets back. Currently, it’s been a couple of months and Mr. Deleon Alvarado has yet to come in and meet with me.