A Cle Elum man admitted stealing nearly $2,500 from Cashmere Valley Bank in a phony check scam and was sentenced in Kittitas County Superior Court after reaching a plea deal with prosectors. During a change-of-plea hearing Friday, Steven Paul Rowley pleaded guilty to second-degree theft as part of the plea agreement. His trial had been scheduled to start Aug.
27. Rowley was sentenced to serve a five-day sentence on electronic home monitoring — well short of a typical mid-range sentence of 30 days — because he swiftly paid back the stolen money after he was charged with a crime. During the hearing Aug.
16, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Patricia Todd said Rowley, 37, cashed a check that belonged to someone else. The amount of the transaction was $2,499.50.
But Todd also said Rowley quickly repaid the money, and with no felonies on his record, asked the judge for a five-day jail sentence, to be served on electronic home monitoring. Judge L. Candace Hooper reminded Rowley that the crime was a Class C felony with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Rowley, however, was facing a standard sentencing range of up to 60 days in jail. “I can give you anywhere in that range. No matter what you guys have agreed to,” Hooper added.
“What is your plea, then, to theft in the second degree?” the judge asked the defendant. There was a brief pause. “It’s either guilty or not guilty,” Hooper reminded him.
“Guilty,” Rowley answered. Todd said the defendant did not have a felony criminal history. “In addition, the day after his arraignment, he went to Cashmere Valley Bank and paid in full the money he was not entitled to have,” she said.
“That was the exceptionary step he took,” Todd continued, and why the plea agreement was a five-day jail sentence. “He found himself in a pickle when he had taken that money,” said defense attorney Margie Alumbaugh. “He was trying to pay it back; he had an agreement with Cashmere Valley Bank to pay it when he realized what had happened,” she continued.
“However, he kinda just didn’t take care of it.” His father helped resolve the matter after Rowley was arraigned, Alumbaugh said. “He understands the gravity of the situation now; a felony on his record,” she said.
“It’s a really serious consequence.” Alumbaugh asked the judge to allow the defendant to serve his five days on electronic home monitoring. Rowley told the judge he realized what he did wasn’t right.
“On the fact of accepting a check that I shouldn’t have in the first place, that was wrong of me,” he said. Noting the size of the theft — “it’s a couple thousand dollars” — and that he was unemployed, Hooper added she would find the defendant indigent and not responsible for court fees. “You did already pay it back, though.
That’s a good thing,” she said. Hooper said the sentence would be either five days in jail or seven days on electronic home monitoring. “Which one do you want?” Hooper asked.
“Seven days,” he answered. “The fact that you paid it off right after you got arraigned is a good thing,” she added. “That’s why I’m willing to do this.
Because otherwise, I would just give you the middle of the range, and you’d have 30 days in jail and that would be it.” The defendant was ordered to start electronic home monitoring by Aug. 26 or report to the jail.
Rowley was accused of theft after he opened a bank account at Cashmere Valley Bank on Nov. 28 and used an online app to get $2,440 in a series of transactions. The theft was discovered after a bank employee found that a $2,500 transaction from another bank was not sufficient to cover withdrawals that had been made.
The bank’s fraud investigator said Rowley had used a “very common scam” that involved creating an account, then using CashApp to send money to another person with an account at another bank. A bank employee spoke to Rowley and he agreed to pay back the amount that was due in $300 weekly payments, according to court documents. Rowley never did, and the bank reported the theft Dec.
26..
