BATON ROUGE – A woman was arrested for attempting to cash fraudulent checks from bank accounts that she opened using a 60-year-old's identity. 

The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office arrested 31-year-old Lacey Bonaventure for forgery, bank fraud, attempted monetary instrument abuse and theft of assets from an aged/disabled person.

On Wednesday around 11:45 a.m., the sheriff's office responded to complaints of a woman attempting to cash checks at the Chase Bank in the 1300 block of O'Neal Lane. Employees stated that Bonaventure attempted to cash two checks from accounts that were opened using a 60-year-old victim's name.

Bank employees noticed that the signatures on the checks did not match the victim's signature they had on file. According to arrest records, one check was made payable to Bonaventure for $100 and another for $200. The date on one of the checks has also been altered and photocopied.

The sheriff's office contacted the victim who stated that she did not open the accounts and did not write checks from the accounts.

Hours later, Bonaventure returned to the Chase Bank and was detained. According to arrest records, she denied opening the accounts and forging the victim's signature on the checks. Bonaventure then stated that she received the checks in the mail and thought they were sent by the victim for money owed. Additionally, she admitted to changing the date on one of the checks as she claimed she thought the wrong year had been written as a mistake.

Bonaventure was arrested on the above charges and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. According to arrest records, Bonaventure had an active traffic bench warrant for her arrest.