St. Peter man accused of check theft and altering operation
Mar. 20—ST. PETER — A St. Peter man was charged with 16 felonies after being accused of stealing personal checks and using chemical agents to rewrite them.
Bee Yang, 43, faces four felonies for check forgery, 11 felonies for mail theft and one felony for methamphetamine possession in Nicollet County District Court.
A criminal complaint states St. Peter police officers used a search warrant on March 14 to search through Yang's possessions after receiving a tip. They reported finding meth and meth pipes in Yang's unit.
The search also turned up mail that didn't belong to him, according to the complaint. A detective said he found three personal checks in a bedroom, and it appeared as though someone had tried to erase the wording on them.
Two of the checks, each for $800, had been issued from the account of someone who said they had been stolen from his mailbox on March 10 or 11. A woman told police that the third check had been stolen from her on Feb. 17, followed by an attempted electronic transaction Feb. 23 in which someone tried to deposit money to the account of "Bee Yang."
Police said they next found a typewriter, the chemical agents, and evidence from 14 different victims in Yang's unit. The evidence included more personal checks, a driver's license, mail, bills, banking statements and a bank card.
Yang reportedly told police he had been staying with a woman at the unit for about a month. He said he knew about the personal checks but thought they belonged to the woman.
Hackers, he said, could have been responsible for the attempted electronic transaction on Feb. 23. The bank card, meanwhile, didn't work and had been left at the unit by a friend weeks ago, according to the complaint.
A detective reviewed Yang's phone, finding texts between the woman and him. In one text, she says they need a type of printer because a "check didn't go through" because it said "altered" on it. She also told him to stop gambling his money away.
Police say Yang told them he didn't know what kind of printer she was talking about. He claimed he was just a middle man and the woman was the one stealing and altering checks, according to the complaint.
Yang's first appearance in court is scheduled for March 28.
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