E-Pass Empoyee Arrested on Fraud

Latoria Pickett, 28, of Orlando was arrested on felony charges of conspiracy to commit organized fraud and fraudulently using personal-identification information and was being held in the Orange County Jail on $50,000 bond.    

Pickett, who worked as a customer service repreentative for a company (Affiliated Copmuter Services)  that processes payments for E-PASS was arrested on February 3, 2010, after allegations that she photocopied customer checks and sold them to people who stole money from their accounts.  According to a spokeswoman for the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, about  three dozen customers were victimized.  Pickett was fired shortly after the allegations came to light.

The investigation began in September 2008 when the Orange County Sheriffs Office conducted a traffic stop and found copies of Expressway Authority customer checks on a woman named Tonya Wells, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. Wells and several others were arrested that year on charges of cashing counterfeit checks throughout Florida.  Investigators found dozens of checks, drivers licenses and bank-account numbers for people who were not E-PASS customers, they said.

The Expressway Authority and ACS hired auditors and changed procedures to make sure a similar scheme could not happen again. Hodges would not be more specific.

If you have been arrested or charged with Fraud or Theft in Orlando and are facing criminal prosecution in either Orange County, Seminole County, Florida, contact the attorneys at Tilden Law for an initial and confidential consultation, 407-599-1234.