Woman reported missing in Connecticut last year arrested for bank fraud in Bay Area

A woman who was reported missing in New Haven last year has been arrested in California along with two New Yorkers and charged with identity theft and bank fraud.

Carleen McGeachie, 42, was one of five suspects who had traveled nearly 3,000 miles and whom detectives had been tailing for months, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

She was picked up last week along with New York residents Richard Logan, 33, and Heaven Richards, 25, as they allegedly attempted to ply their fraudulent trade at several banks throughout the Bay Area.

The three were jailed on suspicion of bank fraud, conspiracy, grand theft and identity theft, the Bay City News Service reported. McGeachie is being held on $50,000 bail pending a court appearance on Friday, according to online records.

McGeachie, Logan and Richards were allegedly part of a “bank fraud scheme targeting multiple financial institutions throughout Sonoma County,” the sheriff’s office said on Monday.

After they were arrested last Thursday, deputies searched a hotel room in Vacaville, where they had been staying. That yielded “more than $15,000 in cash, along with evidence related to identity theft, including fraudulent identification cards and credit cards,” authorities said.

The more than $15,000 in cash as well as fraudulent identification cards and credit cards recovered by police. (Sonoma Sheriff)

Sonoma County police did not say where in New York that Logan and Richards are from. They said McGeachie is also a New York resident, though she’d been reported missing from Connecticut.

McGeachie’s family had not seen her since Sept. 4 of last year, when she was last spotted on Frontage Road near the New Haven town line with East Haven. She was formally reported missing by New Haven police on Nov. 11.

On Tuesday, the New Haven Police Department confirmed she’s the same person who was arrested in California, the New Haven Register reported. Her missing-persons case is now closed, according to Hartford CBS affiliate WFSB.

Her family has not issued a public statement.

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