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WARREN -- A third person has been sentenced among at least seven Trumbull County residents that police say wrote thousands of dollars in bad checks at the expense of a technical college in Niles.
Khymoni Honzu, 27, was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation for her role in the scheme that prosecutors said began with one legitimate check from ETI college that later spawned several counterfeit checks after.
Honzu will also be forced to pay $942 and write a letter of apology to the victim after pleading guilty to an amended indictment for fifth-degree forgery and attempted counterfeiting.
Police said those involved cashed checks for a combined total of upward of $40,000 using the unauthorized account information of ETI Technical College of Niles.
They carried out the cashing of bad checks across various convenience stores around Warren and Niles.
ETI filed a criminal complaint once its accounting department became aware of what was happening and caught the issue with the help of its bank, which flagged the transactions as fraudulent.
The indictment states that the defrauding of the small trades school occurred over eight days, beginning around May 13.
Six others were named in the indictment with the specified amount each one is accused of defrauding from the tech college:
Montria De Asia Adair, of Martin Street SW in Warren, $1,495; Darreion Damone Owens, of Brier Street SE in Warren, $3,375; Kendrick Darnell Tipton, of Willard Avenue SE in Warren, $825; Keyondre Smith, of North Feederle Drive SE in Warren, $1,703; Eric Pyatt, of Forest Glen Road, $7,106 and Asher Lewis, of North Feederle Drive SE, $1,661.
According to court records, Smith and Adair pleaded guilty in drug court, if completed, along with other requirements including paying restitution, the pair would have their charges dropped.
The municipal and common pleas courts issued warrants in June and July 2023 for Owens and Lewis, both of whom have yet to appear in court concerning the charges against them.
A bench warrant was issued for Pyatt in October 2023, after he had previously appeared for two court hearings concerning the fraud charges, but didn't appear at his third pretrial hearing and another hearing for a separate matter involving drug possession charges.