Lakeville Woman Faces 15 Counts of Check Forgery

A Lakeville woman, whom authorities say has a history of embezzling from local companies, has been charged with forging more than $15,000 worth of checks drawn on the account of a Burnsville company.

Lisa Marie Monson, also known as Lisa Marie Watkins and Lisa Marie Mullen, 39, faces 15 counts of check forgery, all felonies, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Monson remains in the Dakota County Jail in Hastings on a $100,000 bond.

According to the criminal complaint against her, Burnsville police were contacted last August by the owner of a Burnsville business, who told them she believed that one of her employees had stolen company checks.

The woman told police that she had hired Monson as a bookkeeper in May 2010 and shared an office with her, where Monson had access to all the company checks that the owner kept in her desk.

The business owner told police that Monson had been slowly stealing company checks and cashing them at various locations. She said she discovered Monson’s activity when she noticed that two company checks were out of sequence.

She said that when she asked Monson about the discrepancy, Monson told her that she might have dropped the checks on the floor and gotten them out of order.

When the business owner went to the bank that handled her business account, she discovered that Monson had been forging the owner’s name on company checks, making them payable to herself, her mother and her husband, according to the complaint.

The business owner arranged a meeting with Monson in late August, the complaint says. Monson initially denied any wrongdoing, but later admitted that she had stolen the checks, justifying her actions by saying she was used to getting paid more by previous employers, according to the complaint.

The forged checks ranged in amounts from $275 to $4,500, the complaint notes.

When Burnsville police repeatedly tried to contact Monson, she told them that she had been “in and out of the hospital” and wasn’t available to meet with them, according to the complaint. When police checked with the hospital that Monson had named, they learned that she had never been a patient there.

In October, police interviewed Monson’s husband, who said he had helped his wife cash business-issued checks, but that she had told him they were loans to cover their mortgage, the complaint says. Monson told her husband that she had inherited about $400,000, but that the money was tied up in Iowa; she also told him that she had been in and out of the hospital for ovarian cancer, according to the complaint.

In a separate case, Monson is accused of embezzling more than $63,000 from All Time Dry Wall in Burnsville when she worked there as a bookkeeper. According to court documents, she has failed to appear at several hearings in that case, claiming that she had a medical excuse and was in the hospital at the time the hearings were scheduled.

Monson’s criminal history in Minnesota includes previous convictions for credit-card fraud and check forgery. An omnibus hearing in her latest case is scheduled for June 20 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.