By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – More than $1 million worth of checks left in an unlocked desk in an unlocked office at a Winlock business last summer disappeared. But they were returned a couple of days later.
However, according to prosecutors, one of them in which the payee line had been left blank was written out and cashed for more than $16,000 by an individual who worked for Jake’s Fireworks for a day and a half.
Jake’s is a distributor of wholesale fireworks and a fireworks retailer on Nevil Road in Winlock.
Carlos D. Linares, now 21, reportedly sent an email to the company within weeks, and admitted he took the check and used the money, according to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.
When law enforcement spoke with Linares this spring, he allegedly said he chose the one check because it was the only one not made out to someone, that he put his name on it and had a relative cash it for him.
Linares was summonsed into Lewis County Superior Court yesterday, where he is charged with first-degree theft and forgery.
He’s unemployed and lives in Chehalis, the judge was told. Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said Linares has no criminal history,.
Judge Richard Brosey allowed him to remain out of jail pending trial on a $5,000 unsecured signature bond.
Charging documents in the case state the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office was contacted on July 9 of last year by the fireworks company.
An employee said she’d been contacted by a girl who returned several two-party checks made out to Jake’s.
The girl said she found the stack of checks in an envelope inside a backpack in a park, charging documents say.
She was engaged to Linares, and said she found them on July 7 and that he would have had access to them before she returned them on July 9, according to the allegations.
The stack of checks totaling more than $1 million were believed to have disappeared on July 8, the same day Linares is believed to have come into the office to be paid, according to charging documents.
It wasn’t until August 11, that the discovery was made that one of them had not been returned, and had been cashed for $16,040.51, according to the documents.
Linares’s arraignment is scheduled for July 30.