So, you have a joint savings account
with you and your great-grandmother.
- Yes. - You have checks that are made out
to you, from a person that you don't know!
- Umm... - Yes, ma'am.
I didn't know that they were bad.
You're not a stupid person? Right?
[narrator] This is Judy Justice.
♪
[narrator] Maude Gatlin is suing her great-granddaughter,
Angelina Marshall, and her daughter,
Angela Norrie,
for writing fraudulent checks.
[bailiff] Court, come to order. All rise.
Have a seat, please.
[bailiff] Hello, Judge.
Case 2169, Gatlin versus Marshall and Norrie.
- Thank you. - You're welcome.
- Ms. Gatlin? - Right here.
Who's Marshall?
- Me. - [Judy] This is your grandmother?
- Great-grandmother... - [Judy] Great-grandmother?
Yes, Your Honor.
Would you have a seat for a moment?
- Me? - [Judy] Yes.
Thank you.
- And this is your...? - [Angelina] My great-aunt.
[Judy] Your first name is Angelina?
- Yes, Your Honor. - [Judy] And you said
- that this was your great-aunt? - No. She's my great-grandmother,
and then, the other lady is my great-aunt.
[Judy] No, no... who is the plaintiff?
- My great-grandmother. - [Judy] Oh, that what it says
in the complaint, I didn't understand it
when you said, "That was my great-aunt."
- Sorry. - [Judy] OK. How old are you today?
- I'm 18. - [Judy] When did you turn 18?
- September 24th. - [Judy] Prior to your turning 18,
- you had a job? - [Angelina] Yes.
- Doing what? - Being a food associate worker.
[Judy] How long were you working there?
I was there for five months.
And how much were you making an hour?
- Seventeen dollars. - [Judy] Who were you living with?
My great-- mm, sorry, my grandmother.
[Judy] And, Ms. Gatlin, is Ms. Norrie your daughter?
- Yes, she's my oldest daughter. Yes. - [Judy] That's what I thought.
Because you were working, you wanted to start a bank account?
Yes. Yes, Your Honor.
[Judy] And you asked your great-grandmother
whether she could help you do that,
because you needed a co-signer?
Um, no, she actually offered if...
[Judy] OK, well, tell me about it.
Well, I was helping her move some stuff into our apartment,
- and then, um... - [Judy] You were helping her
- with...? - I was helping her move some of her stuff
into our apartment, 'cause at the, at the current time,
she needed to live with us, and I was helping her out...
[Judy] Your great-grandmother was going to be living with you?
- [Angelina] Yes. - [Judy] And what month was that?
- June. - [Judy] June of...?
2022.
So you were helping her move some of the things into your house?
- [Angelina] Yes. - [Judy] And?
[Angelina] And, well, we were at the bank,
so she wanted to withdraw some money for,
well, I don't know, really, know what she was doing,
but I was just riding around with her.
You a working lady, or were you?
- Yes, I do work, Your Honor. - [Judy] For whom?
I work for Secure Tech.
[Judy] And that's where you deposit your paychecks?
Yes, my paychecks are directly deposited, that is correct.
OK, so now you're traveling with your great-grandmother, around,
and she had to make, go in and make a deposit?
- [Angelina] Mm-hmm. - [Judy] Or a withdrawal.
- Yes. - [Judy] And?
Well, um, I was sitting there waiting for her to finish,
and, um, well, while we were waiting
for a teller to open up for her, before she went outside,
uh, she asked me if I would like to open a--a savings account.
And, um, well, I really didn't need one,
but I was, like, yeah, sure, so I can at least have my checks go somewhere.
Well, what were you doing with your checks before that?
Um, I would just take them to the bank.
Is that where the bank that they were drawn on?
- Yes. - [Judy] OK. So you were taking them
- to the bank that they were drawn on, - Yes.
[Judy] to cash? OK.
But this was a more convenient bank?
Um, yes. She said it would help me with my credit, so I'm, like, yeah, sure.
Since she wants to help out.
[Judy] OK. So, you had some paychecks
- that you were putting in there? - Yes.
Those are not the checks that are at issue.
How long did you put your paychecks into the bank,
that was now a joint savings account with you and your great-grandmother,
starting in June?
Excuse me? What?
[Maude] It actually started in May, Your Honor.
- [Judy] May of 2022? - Y-Yes. And, um,
to go back a little bit, Angelina, yes, I was living with my oldest daughter.
Angelina came to me one night and she said, "Granny,"
she said, "Can you help me open a bank account?"
And I said, "Well, we'll see."
So, she happened to be with me that particular day,
when I went to take care of a transaction.
And I said, "Hey, let's see if we can open your--your account,
that you asked me about."
And the young lady asked her how old she was.
She said 17.
She said, "Well, unfortunately, you can't open an account."
- She said, "But you..." - You have to-- you have to--
- need a co-signer. - [Maude] Yeah. She said, "Ms. Gatlin?"
She said, "Since you've been banking with us for a while,
Angelina can open up a junior account on your account."
So I said, "Oh, OK."
- Great. So, it was opened in May. - It was opened in May.
- [Judy] Great. - May the 11th.
[Judy] And you put your paychecks in there?
- Yes. - And you withdrew from your paychecks
what you needed to live?
- Yes. - [Judy] Is that what happened?
- Yes, Your Honor. - But then there came some checks
that you weren't quite sure
of how they originated?
They were not your paychecks?
What checks were those?
Um, they were some checks that a family member gave to me...
[Judy] No, no, not a family member.
Not a family member.
Your father gave to you?
- Yes. - [Judy] When did your father
give you these checks?
I'm... gonna say maybe July?
- I'm not too sure... - [Judy] When did you see
- your father? - I, well, he's in and out
of our lives a lot, we never really talked to him when he was around.
But, um, maybe about...
No, no, look at me, and tell me how it is
that your father gave you checks,
which turned out to be bad,
to put in your account, your bank account?
Well, he was just trying to help out...
No, not just trying to help out.
I want you to tell me where you received the checks,
what he said to you when he gave you the checks,
and I assume he did not give you the checks
all at one time?
- No, he didn't. - [Judy] He gave them to you
- intermittently? - Yes.
[Judy] So tell me when he gave you the first check.
- Was that in July? - [Angelina] Yes.
- [Judy] Where was he? - Um, we were at my house.
- With? - My grandmother.
[Judy] With your grandmother?
- She likes him? - [Angelina] Yes.
And what happened when he was at your house...
- [Angelina] Well, um... - in July?
Well, he came over to check us--
to check up on us, the family.
And he's, like, um, "Angelina, do you need some money?"
I said, "Yeah, Dad, to help out with the bills."
He's like, "OK, here, cash this," and like...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
♪
What happened when your grandmother told you that the checks were bad?
I was, like, OK, I didn't know, 'cause I was trying to get into my account.
I didn't know about it. I'm like, OK, she said,
"Are you gonna pay it so it won't come back on me?"
I'm like, "Yes, I will pay it."
You're talking very fast.
♪
[narrator] Maude Gatlin claims her 18-year-old great-granddaughter,
Angelina Marshall, used her account to cash fraudulent checks.
OK. Now, according to you, your father's been in and out of prison?
- Yes. - How long had he been out of prison
when he came to the house?
I'm gonna be honest, I don't know,
'cause he's honestly been in and out of jail a lot.
So I don't really keep track of how many times he gets out and in.
Well, I'm just asking, when he came to your house in July,
had he been in jail in June? In April?
- I-- April. - [Judy] He'd been in jail in April?
- In May? - No. He was not in jail.
Where was he working?
Um, he was actually, he wasn't working anywhere.
[Judy] He wasn't working in May?
No. He does his own thing.
What does-- I don't know what that means.
- [chuckling] Me, either. - [Judy] I don't know [mumbling]...
Was he working in May? Was he working in June?
- Mmm, no. - [Judy] When you say
he was doing his own thing,
this "own thing" that he was doing, did not produce paychecks?
To be-- I don't get into my father's business,
- so I wouldn't know. - [Judy] So you took these checks...
Do you have a copy of the check?
Anybody have a copy of the first check from...
I only have one.
Um, four of them is there.
[Judy] Well, first of all, I don't see any signature on here.
On the first one, there isn't, uh, uh, on, on the 3560,
- uh, Your Honor... - [Judy] No, on 600,
Six hundred, twelve hundred...
[Maude] There isn't any signature on any of them.
It's just that she wrote her name on it,
and--and, screenshot them into the account.
- [Judy] Now... - [Maude] And I do have the breakdown.
- I'm sorry? - [Judy] Just a second.
I do have these checks
starting to be deposited
in August, one on the 11th,
two written to you on the 16th,
from a Suzanne, and they're made out to you.
- Right? - Yes.
You're not a stupid person, right?
- No. - [Judy] I want you to tell me
who Suzanne is.
I--I--I wouldn't know.
My dad, I swear, my dad just gave them to me
and told me to cash 'em.
Well, Ms. Marshall, you have checks that are made out to you
from a person that you don't know!
Not from one of your work checks,
it's made out to you, it's signed by somebody who you work for.
It indicates the number of hours on the stub,
do you know what I'm talking about?
- Yes. - [Judy] This is written by somebody
that you have no idea who it is.
Now, a person with a modicum of intelligence
that has an unsigned check would say,
"Who is Suzanne?"
Are you telling me that you didn't ask that question?
- No. - [Judy] No.
Now, when you signed the checks,
- because they had to be signed, right? - [Angelina] Yes.
Whose name did you sign?
- My name. - [Judy] Well, the checks
are made out to you, which means you could've cashed them.
Am I missing something?
So her name was DocuSigned on these checks?
And she merely endorsed them?
Is that what you're telling me?
Basically, what I'm seeing, from what the bank tells me,
she put her name on it, put the amount that she wanted to withdraw,
did a screen shot, and got the money.
OK. Now. OK. There did come a time
when you found out that these checks
were bad checks?
- Mm-hmm - [Judy] Right?
- Yes. - [Judy] And that they were going
to hold your great-grandmother responsible for those checks,
because you already took out the cash.
And you spent it.
All of it.
Not your pay. You may have taken out your pay, too.
I'm gonna ask you a very serious question:
Did you give your father
any portion of the checks that he gave you?
Did he say to you,
"Well, this is work that I did for this woman,
so, if you cash them,
you can give me some, and you can keep the rest"?
Think carefully before you answer my question.
- No, Your Honor. - [Judy] So, he just said to you,
"Take these blank checks, fill them in, and deposit them"?
No, he-- he's the one that filled them in, he told me this, I'm, like,
I looked at him, like, "Dad, are you sure?"
He's, like, "Trust me, Lina, they're fine."
I'm like...
Well, why--why would you trust him? What does he go to jail for?
[sighs] Way different stuff from...
[Judy] Sounds like a dreamboat.
Well, so now I'm going to ask you:
You took this money out, and what did you do with it?
Paid bills, bought stuff I needed for my daughter.
- [Judy] Like what? - Diapers, clothes, shoes...
You know, saving.
Just, uh, in case I needed some more stuff for her,
but I really didn't save.
Took her to places, just to get her out of the house.
And... well...
[Judy] Well, what happened when your grandmother told you
that the checks were bad?
Did she tell you it one time that all the checks were bad,
or did she tell you over a series of times?
- She only, she told me twice. - [Judy] Twice?
The first time it was 400-something dollars, I was, like, OK,
I didn't know, 'cause I was trying to get into my account,
I didn't know about it, I'm, like, OK, she's like, "Are you gonna pay it
so it won't come back on me?" I'm, like, "Yes, I will pay it..."
- You're talking very fast. - [Angelina] Sorry.
I said to my grandmother, or my grandmother said to me,
"Four hundred dollars is, they're discounting
because it was a bad check,"
and that must've been one of the first checks.
- Yes. - [Judy] And you said?
[Angelina] I said, "I will pay it back once my next paycheck goes through."
[Judy] You will pay back what?
The 400... I'm not, not exact how much it was,
- but I know it was 400... - [Judy] OK. So now you know
that the checks that your father was giving you were bad.
Yes.
[Judy] That's with only $400 in it.
'Cause you said to her, "Well, I'll pay you back,"
'cause you've been using that money to take care of you.
- Yes. - [Judy] In addition to the money
- that you're earning. - Yes.
[Judy] You were using the money that your great-grandmother was earning
to take care of you.
So, now you find out that the checks are bad,
but your father gives you other checks.
Did your father give you other checks?
No. Not after-- not after everything happened.
'Cause he, well, once everything started to happen...
No. When he gave you the $400 check,
and the $400 check was returned,
and you said, "I will replace it once I get to work",
- there is more than one check here. - Mm-hmm.
Why did you continue to deposit checks?
Well, when they all came back to me, about all negative this,
I was, like, "OK, what's going on?"
I checked and it said how the checks were bad.
Again, I didn't know that they were bad.
So, when I saw, I was, like, OK, I had to find a way to pay it back,
so, you know, my great-grandmother won't get mad,
and no one else will have to get involved.
Do you want to tell me how much you owe the bank?
OK, Your Honor, um, I went to the bank on the 23rd.
[Judy] No, just tell me how much you owe to the bank.
It's 3,600. That's what they had... did.
- [Judy] OK. - At this time, I've been paying on it.
At this time, it's 2,300 and some change.
[sobbing] I'm sorry.
[Judy] All right, you've been paying on it?
Yes, ma'am.
And it started at $3,600.
Yes, ma'am.
Did your great-granddaughter pay you any money towards it?
- No, she did not. - [Judy] Why not?
Well, I was gonna pay it back,
but then she had my Aunt Janea come into my house,
and take a lot of my electronics.
♪
I would've said to myself, "Self, this doesn't look right.
I don't know", or "I have to ask my father
who's writing all these checks.
She's somebody he works for?
Or is it somebody whose checks he stole?"
♪
[narrator] Maude Gatlin is accusing her 18-year-old great-granddaughter,
Angelina Marshall, of cashing fraudulent checks with her account.
Angelina claims her electronics were sold
to pay for the debt.
Now, she took what electronics?
She took, um, three of our TVs.
[Judy] Now, you bought those TVs with this money?
No, all the stuff that she took was bought way before any of this happened.
My Play-- my PlayStation,
my daughter's tablet,
my, um, Apple laptop,
my daughter's laptop,
two of my speakers, and three of our TVs.
And did she sell them, do you know?
Uh, from what I know, I know she probably sold a little bit of it,
I'm not really sure.
[Judy] Well, then, I think that that's something you have to take up,
you can take that up with your aunt.
And that's how we start putting some of the money into the bank,
of the $430.
It was from some of the electronics.
OK. So, with regard to the $3,900,
you paid off $400?
No, the 30, it was, it was $3,600,
and when I seen it that day,
I looked on my phone, it was 3,000 and something dollars.
I went to the bank and asked them,
"What in the world is going on with my account?"
No, I got exactly what happened and I've laid it out.
After you sold the electronics
that your daughter took...
- Yes, Janea. - [Judy] That your daughter took
- from their house, - [Maude] Mm-hmm.
- [Judy] and you sold them...? - I did.
[Judy] How much were you able to put in the bank
with the sold electronics?
It was 430, and she didn't take it.
She was told to take it.
[Judy] I don't care whether she took it or,
- it doesn't matter to me. - [Maude] OK.
- $430. - [Maude] Mm-hmm.
And they deleted all of my different accounts
that I had within my account
of $103...
and... um...
$107.53.
I had other little accounts that...
[Judy] Just a second, you owed $3,600.
- Yes, that's what the bank said... - [Judy] Just a second...
and you put back in, to satisfy the bad checks,
- $430? - Exactly.
So, what's owed to you is $3,200?
$3,270.
And then I put another hundred dollars on it
in December because of the fact
the credit people came to me and told me
- if I don't put something... - [Judy] No, no, no,
I just want to know what's left,
- [Maude] OK. - what's left after the 430?
- [Maude] OK, as of... - Shh! What?
- Thirty-one seventy. - Thirty-one sev, thirty-one seventy.
- Thank you. - 3,600 minus the 430.
Yeah. Great. Thank you.
[Maude] OK, as of today,
- it's $2,252 and four cents. - [Judy] Ms. Gatlin,
- I am going to make you whole. - [Maude] OK.
Not the money that you paid in yourself.
- OK. - [Judy] What I want to know is,
how much money you paid in?
- Zero. - No, I did pay some in,
put in some of my paychecks that did go through at the time
after everything happened, 'cause I did continue working.
[Judy] No, these were bad checks.
These were the bad checks that are owed, $3,600.
Yes, but I did put a little bit money in.
- Well, how much? - Only one of my checks went in,
which was probably not even worth $100...
[Judy] Well, I'm not interested in it.
- [Judy] Then I'm not interested. - It was $62, to be exact.
- [Judy] Shh! Shh. - Sorry.
[Judy] I'm not interested in it.
Virtually no money, with the exception of perhaps one paycheck,
which amounted to about $100,
- was put in by you? - Yes.
- [Judy] Is that right? - Yes.
[Judy] OK. So the question is,
whether I believe that, a) you knew,
or should've known, that these were bad checks.
And I think you're a pretty smart girl.
Given your father's history, he gives you these checks,
two in one day, one's for $1,200,
one's for $600, one's for $300,
you'd say, "Dad, where'd you get this money from?"
And if you're putting your money into the bank,
your money from work, which is a very good thing, that's fine,
but I'm gonna save up that money,
I'm not gonna buy electronics,
I'm not gonna buy anything else for the house,
what I'm going to do is save that money,
or at least see what happens with it.
So, I would've said to myself,
"Self, this doesn't look right.
I don't know," or "I have to ask my father
who's writing all these checks?
She's somebody he works for?
Or is it somebody whose checks he stole?"
- Do you understand? - Yes, Your Honor.
Great. Judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $3,170.
Thank you very much. We're done.
[bailiff] This court is adjourned.
♪
What they did to us was way worse than what I did to them.
It was very hurtful,
[sobbing] and I'm still in the stress mode about it.
They took all of--all of our electronics,
our TVs, my PlayStation, laptops and speakers.
The truth is, I have a video showing that my niece
actually voluntarily gave me all the electronics to be taken care of.
She said she was gonna do it, and she wasn't gonna do it.
Which is the reason why I took the items
to have everything taken care of for my mom.
My thing is, the property that they, she took,
it-- we bought that couple of years back.
And that shouldn't had nothing to do with what's going on now.
We're not happy people, and you know, to be honest with you,
because of the fact that they did my-- our mother like this,
we don't have anything to do with them.
Well, all I can say is, she'll never see me or my child again.
And that's-- and that's generations going out of her life
over some petty stuff that could've been dealt with easily.
I don't know if it can be solved. God will be that answer.
Don't do your family wrong, even as much as you love 'em,
'cause they raised me, with her, ever since I was four,
and they still did me wrong growing up,
and they still did me wrong today.
You can't trust anyone in your family,
but that doesn't mean don't do 'em wrong.
[sobbing] Because I never thought my family would do this to me.
Another great lesson in the dangers of co-signing anything.
For a car, for a dog,
for a bank account, because I'm sure the great-grandmother plaintiff
would not have accepted checks from her previous son-in-law.
- Oh. - Knowing his background,
and knowing at--at least she would've asked a follow-up question.
- That's right. - So, I understand
the daughter's position of, "Hey, I know what he's been involved in,
I don't want to be involved," but if that's your stance,
you can't benefit from taking checks that you know are probably dirty.
So, and unfortunately, the grandmother didn't get a crash course from us
on the dangers of co-signing on a bank account.
'Cause they can not only, evidently, go into your bank,
- Yeah. - that particular account,
but they can attach any account...
Like she said, they drained all of her other accounts
to fulfill the debt, so there's real dangers in co-signing,
even with someone that you love, like your great-granddaughter.
- Yeah. You're right. - Yeah.
[narrator] Are you having a family dispute?
Go to JudyJustice.tv.