ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
A Fincastle woman with as many as 15 aliases has been charged with bilking Groggins Plastics Co. out of as much as $100,000, the Botetourt County sheriff said. She probably won't be taken into custody until Friday, when she is to be released from a Salem psychiatric center.
Sgt. Larry Carr of the Botetourt County Sheriff's Office tried to arrest the woman at her Fincastle apartment Thursday night, but after he knocked on the door, she took a handful of sleeping pills, Carr said. After being treated at a hospital for the overdose, she was voluntarily committed to the Lewis-Gale Psychiatric Center.
The woman, a bookkeeper at the plastics company for about a year under the name Jenna Drum, was responsible for depositing checks for the payroll and for FICA and federal withholding taxes to the Bank of Fincastle, Sheriff Reed Kelly said. Investigators believe she deposited the payroll checks, but converted the tax checks into cashier's checks for nonexistent vendors and then cashed them at other banks, he said.
The sheriff said investigators believe the woman also wrote paychecks for employees who had quit and cashed them herself.
Investigators believe the woman's real name is Annis Jane Hobratschk, Kelly said. She is charged with four counts each of forgery and uttering. Kelly said more charges are likely.
She was jailed once in Texas and is still wanted by the Harris County sheriff on a charge of larceny by public service in connection with the embezzlement of money from the city of Houston, Kelly said.
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