LISHA SHOULD HAVE STUCK TO PUBLIC-LEWDNESS

I wasn’t aware that gas stations were in the habit of cashing very large checks.

LISHA UNDERWOOD: CRIMINAL GENIUS CHANGES STOLEN #25,439.26 CHECK TO $8,439.26, CAUGHT ANYWAY
By Richard Connelly

Houston Press Hair Balls
February 24, 2012

What is the downfall of every criminal mastermind? Hubris, often, sure. But also greed. They just decide to go too far, and get caught.

Lisha Underwood wasn't going to fall into that trap, if what court documents say is true.

Last October, a local company cut a $25,439.26 check to another business and put it in the mail.

Somehow the check didn't make it to the second company but instead ended up in the hands of Underwood, 37.

She took it to a North Freeway gas station and cashed it, but she wasn't going to make it easy on the cops. Or maybe she was trying to keep the check under the station's check-cashing limit, since ensuing events sorta detract from any criminal-genius assessments.

Usherwood changed the "25" in $25,439.26 to "8," as in $8,439.26.

She must have done it well, for the check went through and she got her money. In the course of the transaction, though, she handed over her driver's license, which the station made a copy of.

So when the check finished its way through the banking process and ended up back at the company that wrote it, investigating the forgery was a pretty simple affair.

Usherwood faces a felony forgery charge. Court records, by the way, show she pleaded nolo contendere to a public-lewdness charge in 1993.