Men jailed for trying to pass counterfeit checks in Longview - KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports

LONGVIEW/GREGG COUNTY (KYTX) - Three Dallas County men are in the Gregg County Jail today, after their attempts to forge checks at at least three Longview banks were thwarted by quick-thinking tellers, police said.

Michael Glenn Patterson, 51, of Mesquite; 23-year-old Nikolaus Ladae Cross-Exom; and 22-year-old Reggie Myers, both of Dallas, were arrested Monday afternoon. According to Longview police spokeswoman Kristie Brian, the men tried passing counterfeit checks at Austin Bank, Texas Bank and Trust and Southside Bank locations in Longview.

In arrest documents obtained by CBS-19, officers were called to Austin Bank in the 300 block of East Loop 281 at 2:07 p.m. Monday on a forgery call. Police spoke with Myers inside the bank, where a bank employee said Myers was in possession of a forged check he had tried to cash. The employee also said that three similar forged checks that had been passed Monday at other bank locations.

A teller noticed that the check was not valid and that the sequence number was incorrect, records showed. Officers later learned that two other people who helping to commit the forgeries.

At 2:28 p.m. Monday, officers were called to Southside Bank's branch at Kroger's grocery store in the 700 block of East Marshall Avenue. Bank employees there said Patterson tried to cash a check there that was not from a valid account, and that the bank had received a fraud alert on the check.

Patterson was transported to Longview police's Criminal Investigation Division, where he told investigators that he "intentionally participated as a member of a criminal gang, by committing forgery," arrest reports showed.

Patterson, Cross-Exom and Myers were all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity/forgery, a third degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.