Tulsa school teacher arrested for check kiting

Tulsa Police arrested a middle school teacher, accused of check kiting. They say she was depositing forged checks from a closed account and getting cash back. She already had the cash before the bank

Thursday, November 11th 2004, 2:15 pm

By: News On 6

Tulsa Police arrested a middle school teacher, accused of check kiting. They say she was depositing forged checks from a closed account and getting cash back. She already had the cash before the bank realized the check she had deposited was no good.

News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright has the story. Tulsa Police have copies of what they say are bad checks and they said Donna Shrier deposited into MidFirst Bank. The report shows she deposited a $200 check on November 2nd, a $550 check on November 4th and another $550 check on the 8th and received cash back each time.

Sgt Tony Celino, Fraud Squad: "She'd done about four of these in an eight to nine day period so they put a fraud notice out on Miss Shrier that if she returned, to call police." And, that's what happened. When she returned Wednesday afternoon with another check written for $550, the bank called police and she was arrested on four felony bogus check counts.

She's a former dean and current 7th grade social studies teacher at Tulsa's Cleveland Middle School. The checks were written on her husband's account with his signature and a note saying they were support payments.

Reports say she told police she and her husband were divorced and she didn't believe he would write her bad checks. But I called Timothy Shrier and he told me they are not divorced but are married and he didn't write or sign those checks and confirmed that account was closed.

I talked to her husband and he said she told him this was all a mistake, a big misunderstanding. But Tulsa Police say that's not true, that she's done this before. Police say she has a previous embezzlement conviction, her husband said the only incident he knew of was more than 20 years ago and was to be expunged from her record.

Our research turned up a 1999 bogus check arrest for Donna Shrier, but that case was dismissed. We also found several lawsuits filed against her in Tulsa, Creek and Rogers County for unpaid bills and a bankruptcy filing by she and her husband this summer.

The school is investigating.