A Crawfordsville woman was arrested last week on 23 counts in connection with a reported fraud,
Linn County Undersheriff Jim Yon said.
Yon said that on June 28, Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested Petreena Marie Clow, 58, in relation to a fraud that was reported to the Linn County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 9 by a business owner in the Crawfordsville area.
The probable-cause affidavit in the case identifies the company Clow worked for as Dennis Jeppsen Logging.
Clow often asked the owner to sign blank checks and leave them with her so should could pay the business’ bills, according to the affidavit.
Jeppsen reported Clow had been the bookkeeper for approximately four years but recently had been fired after the business came into financial trouble. The business’s new bookkeeper realized Clow had been writing numerous unauthorized checks on the business account, Yon said.
Detectives worked with the business’s new bookkeeper and were able to determine Clow had fraudulently written 51 unauthorized checks over a three year period totaling $107,325, Yon said.
The investigation revealed some of the checks were addressed to her and others were addressed to the Crawfordsville Market, according to the affidavit.
During the investigation, deputies learned that Clow also went by the name “Pete Clow” and was employed by Crawfordsville Market.
She was employed by the market for several years before it was purchased by its current owner, according to the affidavit.
“While some of these checks had been written prior to the current expiration of the statute of limitations, as of June 19, 2017, Jeppsen was unaware of the fraudulent checks until Feb. 9, 2017,” the affidavit states.
The affidavit states Judy Taylor, the owner of Crawfordsville Market, said Clow had access to the market’s bank accounts and credit line and ran the day-to-day operations. In April 2017, the owner learned that the market owed more than $7,000 to the Oregon Lottery and several checks Clow had written were returned for non-sufficient funds, according to the affidavit.
As a result of the investigation, Clow was arrested and charged with racketeering, five counts of first-degree theft I, three counts of first-degree aggravated theft, seven counts of first-degree forgery, two counts of identity theft, and five counts of aggravated identity theft.