Worthless checks cost Mississippi businesses millions of dollars a year, but that money can be recovered for free through the district attorney's office, says a candidate who is running for the post.
Tucker Gore, an assistant district attorney in the 4th Circuit, heads the district's bad check unit. He was also the lead prosecutor in the trial against Jimmy Vickers, the Greenville man who was convicting of hiring people to kill his brother so he could claim the family's $4 million estate all to himself.
Gore, 48 - who is running as an independent against another assistant district attorney, Joyce Chiles of Itta Bena - told the Greenwood Kiwanis Club about both experiences Thursday.
When authorities successfully pursue a bad check transaction, the person who ends up losing money is the offender, Gore explained. Besides paying restitution for what was stolen, the check writer is also fined $30.
"They pay us," Gore said. "You don't have to pay us."
At that rate, victims are better off going to their district attorney's office than paying a collection agency to recover the money, he said. "A lot of collection agencies, instead of taking time to handle tough checks, they just send it back to you."
Gore's division in the 4th Circuit recovers about $300,000 a year from bad check writers, he said. The fees collected are one of the main revenue sources for the district attorney's office, he said.
Dr. Todd Hall, a Greenwood optometrist, said the crime is frequent in the city. Some people seem to keep nearly empty bank accounts just so they can write bad checks on them, he said.
"There's a certain group of individuals in this community who have what I call a 'hot check account,'" said Hall. "We've even had it before where we call a bank up and a person at the bank just starts laughing when we tell them who it is."
The usual penalty for writing bad checks is a restitution payment. If a person convicted of the crime can't afford to pay, the sentence moves to work time in a restitution center. A prison sentence looms over the offender if all other measures fail.
In the second part of his speech, Gore called the prosecution of Vickers "the biggest case to ever come out of Washington County and one of the biggest in the entire district." The 4th Circuit covers Washington, Sunflower and Leflore counties.
Gore briefed the audience on the bizarre case - the $4 million inheritance that wasn't available to Vickers because of tax liens against him; his plots to murder his brother, David, to claim the entire estate; the five men Vickers hired for the killing, four of whom backed out; and Vickers' murder conviction, which led to a jury deadlocked over the death penalty. Vickers is currently serving a life sentence without parole.
"This thing was the craziest thing," Gore said. "Agatha Christie could not have written this."
