A tip from a bank employee led police to a Florida woman who allegedly drove around to Wells Fargo branches withdrawing money from another person's account. She has been charged with two felony counts of ID theft.
According to the Wauwatosa report:
Jennifer Grimaldi, 40, said she got a call from a male acquaintance who offered to pay her and help get her teeth fixed if she flew to Minnesota and helped him with some jobs.
She arrived in the Midwest on Jan. 14 and he picked her up in a car full of people. The group spent a few nights in Minnesota before heading to the Milwaukee area.
Grimaldi was given a purse - it was later learned it had been stolen during a car break-in - that contained identifying and financial information belonging to a Minnesota woman. She was told to go to various Wells Fargo locations and withdraw money from the victim's account. The man said he would follow in another vehicle and she should give the money to him when she was finished.
At 12:20 p.m. Jan. 19, Grimaldi pulled into the Wells Fargo drive-thru at 2675 N. Mayfair Road and asked for a withdrawal slip and how much she could withdraw without coming into the bank. When she sent an ID in, the teller recognized the name as belonging to a client who had reported her purse had been stolen. The company's Menomonee Falls branch reported a woman going from bank to bank pretending to be the client.
More than $7,000 had already been removed from the client's account through the scam.
Staff tried to stall the woman, but she got nervous and drove off. Her vehicle was stopped in the 11300 block of West North Avenue and she was arrested. She had $2,000 on her, which police recovered.
The man has not been found yet.