ELKINS, W.Va. — A $82,170.50 check from St. Louis arrived in Petersburg like a ghost: no real funds behind it, just greed. Sandra Mae Evans, 62, of Petersburg, West Virginia, has admitted to knowingly depositing the fraudulent check into her IRA account at Pendleton Community Bank in August 2018 — and then looting it like a criminal vault.
Evans pled guilty today to one count of Mail Fraud, caving under federal pressure after investigators exposed her scheme. The check, mailed from Missouri, was deposited at the bank’s Petersburg branch, which cleared funds before the fraud was detected. Evans didn’t wait — she began withdrawing cash almost immediately, pulling out more than $42,000 against money that never existed.
With cold precision, Evans funneled $18,000 in cash to an unknown recipient in Florida and shipped another $11,000 in cash to someone in Utah. Investigators say the transfers reek of scam networks — possibly tied to larger fraud rings exploiting elderly victims or fake inheritance scams. The money trail, once hot, has since gone cold.
Now, she’s on the hook. As part of her plea agreement, Evans has agreed to pay $35,808.05 in restitution to Pendleton Community Bank — the unrecovered balance from her ill-gotten withdrawals. The bank, a small-town institution, absorbed the initial loss, but the damage cuts deeper than dollars.
She now faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the final sentence will weigh the severity of the crime and Evans’ prior criminal history — if any. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael John Aloi presided over the hearing, where Evans offered no defense.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the West Virginia State Police, agencies increasingly cracking down on mail-based financial scams in rural Appalachia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod J. Douglas is prosecuting. The federal message is clear: even in quiet towns, fraud won’t mail itself in unnoticed.
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Key Facts
- State: West Virginia
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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