Left to right: Christopher Allen Haynes, Chad Thomas Wallace, Gregory Wade Wallace and Galon Wesley Parker / Cullman Police Department
CULLMAN - The Cullman Police Department has arrested four men for various forgery charges in the last three weeks, all as the result of a call from an alleged victim of identity theft back on Jan. 23.
The investigation began, according to Sgt. Adam Clark, when patrol officers responded to a call from a residence on Morgan Avenue Southwest. Patrol Officers David Brooks and Roy Bates responded to the call and made discoveries that prompted the investigation.
“Patrol officers David Brooks and Roy Bates did an outstanding job on the investigation of the initial call, which led to the search warrant,” said Clark.
As a result, Christopher Allen Haynes, 37, was arrested on Jan. 23 and charged with identity theft and possession of a forged instrument. Chad Thomas Wallace, 43, and Gregory Wade Wallace, 47, were arrested on Feb. 5 and each charged with possession of a forgery device, forgery and possession of a forged instrument. Lastly, Galon Wesley Parker, 36, whom Clark said was just released from prison on Jan. 9, was arrested on Feb. 10 and charged with six counts of forgery, six counts of possession of a forged instrument and one count of possession of a forgery device.
As to how the investigation unfolded, Clark said, “They (the officers) got a call there (Morgan Avenue) because they had a victim from Decatur who had his vehicle stolen, and the victim said that someone had gotten a loan in his name and used that address.”
Clark said the officers went to the Morgan Avenue residence to investigate the identity theft. The officers made contact with a man at the residence who claimed to be the victim, not knowing the victim was sitting in the patrol car. The man impersonating the victim turned out to be Christopher Allen Haynes.
Clark said, “So, we identify him, and he was charged with identity theft because he had the guy’s social security card, he had a driver’s license made with that guy’s information, but with his picture on it. He admitted to using it to get a loan. We found out later that he used it to get phones from AT&T. Also, on his person he had a check in the victim’s name, and the check had ‘Group Services’ written on top of it as the company name.
“We started asking him where he got the check from; well, he tells us a guy named Galon Wesley Parker wrote him the check and Chris had went and cashed one with Galon that day at Jack’s Beverage in Trinity, Alabama. We start trying to talk to him a little bit more and he points into the living room and tells us he’s got a printer and a computer in there and that’s where he prints the checks from. We asked one of the occupants of the house, Gregory Wade Wallace is his name, asked him whose bedroom it was, and he said, ‘It’s mine,’ so we asked him if we could walk in there and when we walked in there we saw the printer, the computer and you could look in this cabinet and see a box of Office Depot checks, blank checks that they use to print.”
Clark continued, “They get Chris Haynes and we start to delve a little more into the check that he had because it was a forged check and that was for sure because John Paul Bryant, which is our victim from Decatur, we know that’s not his check already. So, he tells us that Galon is writing checks and Greg took us into the room and we saw all the stuff. There were a lot of people who stayed in that apartment, more than like five or six, and there were a couple beds in that room, so based on the information that guy gave us, officers stayed there and held the apartment, made sure nobody touched anything in the apartment and we went and wrote a search warrant.”
Clark said he and Sgt. Todd Chiaranda went to the residence with Officer Roy Bates and Officer David Brooks and served the search warrant. Allegedly recovered were two computers, check-writing software called “Checksoft,” the printer, the blank checks and hundreds of pre-written checks that were written to Chad Thomas Wallace, Gregory Wade Wallace, Galon Wesley Parker and another man.
“There were checks written to all of them which means to us, of course, they’re all probably writing checks. Chad Wallace, Greg Wallace and Galon Parker, they have all three been arrested and are all three currently incarcerated at the Cullman County Detention Center. I have also interviewed (another man) and he has confessed to cashing the checks that Galon wrote him. We interviewed Wesley (Galon), and Wesley kind of puts all the blame on everyone else, but he does admit to writing the checks. The accounts were opened in Wesley’s name; he actually opened four accounts in his name at different banks, at Regions Bank and Independent Bank which is out of Michigan, he opened up online accounts and then went in person to open one here at Regions and then took his personal bank account number and created checks in a business name, either ‘Group Services,’ ‘Total Construction’ or ‘Complete Contractors.’
“One of his points was that he didn’t forge them because he used his real account number, but I told him no, you did because that’s a personal bank account number and you’ve created business checks and been fraudulently cashing them throughout our community. They cashed them here, Decatur, Moulton, Arab, Jasper and possibly other places, there’s no telling.”
Clark and the Cullman Police Department received assistance from the Secret Service during their investigation.
"A U.S. Secret Service Agent came in and assisted me and helped me conduct interviews, and they’ve been really great assisting in the investigation. We got a search warrant for the content on the computers and the phones and stuff that we seized that day and the U.S. Secret Service is in possession of them getting the content off of them for us.”
Clark said that the amounts on the forged checks ranged anywhere from $200 to $1,000 and used multiple account numbers.
The investigation is ongoing at this time and Clark said there could be more arrests to come in connection with the case.
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