A West Memphis man was indicted Friday by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on three bank fraud charges after the U.S. Secret Service linked him to illegal bank transactions in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas in April.
Court documents show Llewellyn Ellis Graham was first arrested April 17 by Sherwood police in the drive-thru lane of a Regions Bank branch on Kiehl Avenue, after he tried to obtain a $15,000 cashier's check and cash a $3,800 check using the name of a bank customer.
The bank had been alerted that someone driving a maroon van was using the customer's name. An employee also had contacted the bank customer, who denied authorizing Graham -- who was driving a maroon van -- to withdraw money from his account, according to court documents.
The documents show police arrested Graham outside the Kiehl Avenue bank after finding him in possession of a fake Texas driver's license bearing his photograph but a different name. Documents show police also found two more fake driver's licenses in the van, one from Texas and one from Louisiana, with photographs that didn't match either Graham or his passenger.
Sherwood police also found Graham in possession of three credit cards bearing three different names, as well as a glass narcotics-smoking pipe and papers showing the van had been rented April 3 in Birmingham, Ala., under the name of the passenger, Jaryd Hawkins, documents say. Both men were arrested on state charges of forgery and obstructing governmental operations.
The bank later reported that Graham had posed the previous day as a different bank customer and tried to withdraw $5,000 from the customer's account.
On April 18, a day after being released from the Pulaski County jail, Graham opened an account under yet another name at a Simmons Bank branch on Crestwood Road in North Little Rock, according to a U.S. Secret Service agent's report. It said he used a debit card obtained under the fake name and used it and a fraudulent Texas driver's license to rent a car that same day in Little Rock.
Two days later, a US Bank branch in Little Rock issued a $7,500 cashier's check made out to the fake name, which Graham then deposited into the Simmons account, according to the Secret Service report.
The report details a series of other fraudulent transactions that it alleges Graham carried out over the next several days at banks in Lake Village, Mississippi and Texas, before being arrested in the rented car in Marshall, Texas, while trying to forge a check. It notes that police in Marshall found 24 pieces of identification belonging to other people in the rental car.
Graham's indictment in the Eastern District of Arkansas charges him with bank fraud April 16 and 17 at Regions Bank branches in Sherwood and Little Rock.