Woman charged with attempting to cash fraudulent checks, drug possession

A 47-year-old woman is accused of cashing a fraudulent check and possessing drugs after a failed attempt Thursday, according to a magistrate’s complaint filed in the Supreme Court of Guam.

Cheryl Moana Marie Borja was charged with forgery as a second-degree felony and possession of a schedule II controlled substance as a third-degree felony, the complaint said.

Around 12:15 p.m. Thursday, police responded to Rustan’s Foreign Exchange after an employee said a customer was trying to cash a fraudulent check for $1,300.

The employee told police that the numbers on the check were incorrect, and that the bank the check was said to belong to, Oceanic Bank, has not been in business since 2009 and the company listed on the check, Bolson Builder’s Guam, has not been in business since . 2019, the complaint states.

Borja was arrested in the store while the employee called the police.

Officers arrived and checked Borja for weapons, revealing a plastic baggie in her left back pocket containing a white crystal-like substance, the documents state.

Borja was placed in the patrol vehicle and transported to the station around 12:45 p.m. and upon arrival, officers found a glass pipe on the rear floorboard, near where Borja had been sitting.

A field test conducted on a sample from the bag found in Borja’s pocket resulted in a presumptive positive result for the presence of methamphetamine, the complaint said.

Borja agreed to speak with officers and admitted that the check she tried to cash was fake and that a friend gave her a blank check and she used a typewriter to type the information on the check, according to the release. the documents.

Borja said she agreed to give her friend some of the money she received from successfully cashing fraudulent checks, but the first time was with Rustan, so she couldn’t get any money.

She also admitted to having the bag of suspected methamphetamine in her pocket and the glass pipe found in the patrol vehicle used to arrest her at the police station.

Borja was committed on $1,000 cash bail, according to documents from the attorney general’s office.