APD: Woman attempts to cash fraudulent check, pulls box cutter on officer
AUSTIN, Texas - An Austin woman was arrested Friday afternoon after Austin police say she attempted to cash a fraudulent check and then got angry with an officer and pulled a box cutter on him.
Sarah Ann Morgan, 35, was charged with first-degree felony aggravated assault on a public servant.
According to an arrest affidavit, officers were called to a Wells Fargo bank on South Congress Avenue Nov. 22 around 1:35 p.m. where the caller said a woman was trying to pass a fraudulent check and had done the same at another location the day before.
An officer asked Morgan if she had an account, to which she reportedly responded "with sarcasm" that that was the bank teller's job. According to the arrest affidavit, Morgan couldn't tell the officer how long she had the account and was being "very vague" with her responses.
She handed the officer a checkbook and the officer spoke with staff who said Morgan was using a "sold account" previously flagged by Wells Fargo as an account with several fraudulent transactions by different people, says the affidavit. An internal alert reportedly had been sent out companywide about Morgan, including a photo of her driver's license.
A Wells Fargo service manager told the officer Morgan had attempted to cash a check for $3,500, which raised immediate concerns because the check was written to herself from a business account that didn't do cash transactions and she was not listed as a signer on the account, says the affidavit.
When asked how she got the checks, Morgan told the officer they were sent to her by mail, but she said she didn't know who sent them, says the affidavit.
As their conversation continued, Morgan began to get angrier and at one point stood up and was face to face with the officer, according to the affidavit.
A friend of Morgan's tried to physically hold her back and calm her down. The officer grabbed her hand and began placing handcuffs on her "due to her increasingly aggressive, confrontational and emotionally charged demeanor." The affidavit says she clenched her hand into a fist, trying to pull her hand away, and said: "let go of me now!"
She then removed a silver box cutter from her jacket, holding it in front of her as she tried to push the blade out, says the affidavit. The officer pulled his gun, pointing it at Morgan, and told her to put the box cutter away. Morgan took a step or two back and pulled out a wine bottle opener, throwing them both away, and the officer put her in handcuffs.