The preliminary hearing for a case of fraud, which seems to have been ripped from the annals of Internet urban legend, was postponed in Magistrate Court on Wednesday, Dec. 2.

A Nigerian New Mexico Tech graduate student was arrested Nov. 2, after a series of complaints filed by his roommate and the NMT personnel department regarding stolen, forged and fraudulent checks.

According to a court records filed by campus police Detective Donna Armijo, 30-year-old Obinna Uzoh was charged with fraud and forgery, second-degree felonies, and tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony.

Uzoh is accused of taking two checks from his roommate, Frank Gambardella, and writing them for amounts of $5,000 each and sending them to a second man in Texas. Uzoh has also been implicated in the printing and forgery of fraudulent checks written from an Tech payroll account.

Gambardella filed a complaint with police on Oct. 21 about the two checks missing from his checkbook, citing his roommate (Uzoh) as a suspect.

On Oct. 28, Gambardella filed another complaint with police, claiming that three more of his personal checks were missing.

The same day, NMT personnel notified police that a fraudulent check, supposedly issued by Tech, had been cashed in Fiji. The check was computer generated, but had a routing number from an NMT payroll account that was used for handwritten checks.

The signature on the check was forged, but resembled the signature of an NMT clerk authorized to sign the handwritten checks.

The clerk gave the campus police a list of all staff and students who had been issued handwritten checks since 2007, and Detective Armijo noticed that Uzoh had received two payroll checks on Sept. 22.

Armijo remembered that Uzoh had been the suspect in another complaint filed with the NMT police unit by Gambardella on Oct. 12, concerning other stolen checks.

On Oct. 29, Socorro City Police Detective Richard Lopez interviewed the Texas man on the phone regarding the case.

The man claimed that he was contacted via the internet by someone who called himself Woodluck Brown, who had an uncle name named Frank Gambardella wanting to invest in his company. The Texas man claimed that he deposited checks as part of a job he acquired through the Internet. The man said he received two checks written from Gambardella's checking account. He deposited the first check for $5,000, which cleared, but when he tried to deposit the second one, it bounced due to insufficient funds.

After the second check bounced, The Texas recipient tried to contact Gambardella, and said that he spoke to a man with a Nigerian accent.

On Oct. 30 Gambardella spoke to police again about his suspicions concerning Uzoh, and gave police a torn piece of paper he found in the trash with the Texas man's name and 5,000.00 written on it, along with a torn-up check.

Assistant District Attorney Stacey Ward was informed by police of all the information and evidence in the case, and she issued a warrant to search Uzoh and Gambardella's residence.

Three days later, Socorro and Tech police officers entered Uzoh's residence, found him sleeping in his bedroom. Police handcuffed him and placed him in a patrol car while they searched his room.

Officers confiscated a cell phone, a laptop computer, computer disks, flash drives, paperwork, bank documents and three software disks used for creating checks, among other items.

Uzoh was arrested and taken to the Socorro City Police Department, where he requested an attorney.

Uzoh was released from jail on Nov. 4, under a $25,000 bond.

Socorro attorney Lee Deschamps, who represents Uzoh in the case, said, "We expect he's going to be fully exonerated."

Detective Lopez said fraud and narcotics cases are the most frequent crimes the Socorro police department deals with.

A typical scam involves one person depositing checks sent from another location, where the recipient would keep a percentage of the money for himself or herself, and mail the remaining cash back to the person who sent the initial check. In most cases, the checks are stolen or fake.

"People need to be careful about jobs on the Internet, especially receiving checks through the mail," Lopez said.

When asked why the check laundering scheme is so prevalent, Lopez said, "They don't think they will get caught because so many people are involved, doing a little part."

Contact Ether Ashe