A man from Georgia is accused of recruiting the Cleveland homeless to commit crimes in Northeast Ohio.
Gerald Rashad Blalock, 27, recruited outside of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries at least five times and will face felony charges for cashing fraudulent checks.
Fairview Park police say according to the homeless men involved, they were picked up from outside the homeless shelter and told they'd be doing legitimate work. The scheme wasn't revealed until they pulled up to banks across the area.
"They originally recruited them to do a construction job, and then as time went on, the people who were arrested realized, we aren't doing construction. But if you think about it, eight hours of hard labor or five minutes of walking into a bank, they took the easy way," Fairview Park Police Lieutenant Paul Shepard said.
Fairview Park's first call came from Key Bank, where police were called about a suspicious man passing bad checks.
"They talked to the man, found out he's a 32-year-old homeless gentleman from Cleveland," Lt. Shepard explained.
According to police, the man said he was recruited from where he was staying - Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries in Cleveland - and the pieces quickly came together.
"While we were investigating that, we received word that approximately 30 minutes prior, Rocky River had detained two gentlemen from the same shelter as our guy passing bad checks," Lt. Shepard said.
Fairview Park Police followed-up on reports coming in and arrested Georgia resident Blalock outside the Fairview Park Ramada Inn he was staying at.
Police even found blank checks in Blalock's rental car.
"He recruited the men, took them out there, provided the men with the checks, provided the men with cash, then dropped them back off at the homeless shelter."
Police say he would take a picture of their ID's, put the checks in the homeless men's names and then give them 10 percent back of what they cashed.
Now, reports are coming in from all over the area - North Ridgeville, North Olmsted, Highland Heights, Mansfield and Elyria.
"It's just the tip of the iceberg. As we gather more information we are trying to see how far reaching this is," Lt. Shepard said.
With at least five homeless men awaiting felony charges for passing bad checks, Fairview Park investigators are focused on finding four suspects they believe were working for and traveling with Gerald Rashad Blalock to recruit and commit crimes. They're also working to determine how long this group has been doing this and where.
Who knows, local law enforcement could have broken up a ring doing damage throughout the country.
"I'm very pleased. A lot of times the biggest rings are stopped by just city local police officers doing their job," Lt. Shepard replied.
According to police, the fake checks were all linked to real accounts, but it's not clear who the victims are yet. Police say the banks will end up eating these costs.
The Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries Men's Shelter didn't respond to News 5's requests for a comment, but police said they are aware of the crimes and warning the men staying there.
