Pickaway – A Columbus Man was found guilty of attempting to steal thousands of dollars from Pickaway County taxpayers when he went to local banks to cash fake checks from the Pickaway County Auditors office.
The crime went down in June of 2023 when 32-year-old Jermaine Tate went into local Pickaway County banks with several fraudulent checks recreated as Pickaway County Auditor’s Checks and attempted to cash them for several thousand dollars each. There were several checks written out to four different individuals, Timothy Kinsler, Jermaine Tate, Keenan Davidson, and Jerome Montgomery. A total of 9 fraudulent checks were written. Jermaine Tate had three fraudulent checks in his name for a total of 6,600 dollars and he was identified through video cashing the checks.
According to the report, it was the local banks that noticed that the checks did not look correct even though they looked very similar to official checks and even had Brad Washburns name signed on them.
Through video evidence, Jermaine Tate was seen chasing the checks and was charged with the crime. This week in Pickaway County Court he was found guilty of passing bad checks and was sentenced to 12 months in prison and 6,600 in restitution for his crimes.
