Police: Woman Used Fake ID to Steal Money from Stamford, Darien Banks

A 21-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday after she tried to fraudulently withdraw $3,000 from HSBC Bank, Darien police said.

The woman told police she was working with others to commit the fraud and had also withdrawn $2,800 at a Stamford bank from the same account, police said.

said they were called to the bank at 12:36 p.m., where they were told the woman had tried to withdraw the money from an account which had been flagged for security reasons.

The woman, later identified as Stephany Jeffry of the Bronx, gave police a phony California driver license and told police she was "Jennifer Williams," and was visiting her sister in New York.

She said her sister had dropped her off at the bank and was waiting for her in the parking lot of Darien Diner, next door in a black Nissan with New York license plates. Police checked and saw no such vehicle in the lot.

On further checking into the driver's license, police found that although it was phony, it was connected to a real person who now lives in Las Vegas. Jeffry later admitted her real identity. She lives on Walton Avenue in the Bronx.

Jeffry had a slip of paper on her with two bank account numbers and the account balances of each. Bank employees told police that the account Jeffry was trying to withdraw funds from had been flagged because $2,800 had been withdrawn from it earlier that day at the Landmark Square branch of the bank in Stamford.

Jeffry admitted that she had fraudulently withdrawn those funds. She told police that a man with the street name "Rugg" had driven her and another female to Darien. She said he had given her the slip of paper, along with the phony driver's license.

She told police that she was to be paid for performing her part of the scheme but claimed she didn't know just how much.

Police arrested Jeffry on charges of third-degree larceny, second-degree forgery, criminal impersonation, interfering with an officer and conspiracy to commit third-degree larceny.

Her bond was set at $20,000, which she was unable to post. She was arraigned Thursday in state Superior Court in Stamford.