BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A 63-year-old Keystone Heights man was sentenced to two years of community control followed by a year of probation after pleading to uttering a false bank bill, note, check or draft.
Larry Lee Garrow was arrested by Bradford deputies on December 17 for fraud.
According to a March 11, 2025, complaint, Garrow opened a savings account at a Starke bank in December 2024. Between January and March, he allegedly deposited three fraudulent checks at the depository.
The first incident occurred on January 21, when Garrow deposited a $4,860 check drawn on First Hawaiian Bank, claiming to be from a Missouri cannabis dispensary. The bank immediately flagged it as fraudulent.
On March 4, Garrow allegedly deposited a $15,750 check purportedly from JPMorgan Chase Bank, made out to himself and marked “Home Remodeling.” During the same transaction, he received a cashier’s check for $15,006 from the bank.
The following day, he deposited another fraudulent check for $13,655, also from Chase Bank. On March 6, Garrow withdrew $5,300 in cash before both checks were flagged as fraud.
The fraudulent deposits left his account with a balance of negative $21,166.43.
When questioned by investigators at his residence on March 12, Garrow told deputies he had been communicating for several years with a woman he met online who claimed to be a model involved in a lawsuit with her former agency. Garrow said a lawyer set up the Chase account in his name and instructed him to deposit checks and send money to New York.
“I didn’t think nothing about it. I thought I could trust them,” Garrow told investigators, according to the report.
Despite being informed the account was fake, Garrow allegedly attempted to deposit another fraudulent check for $43,650 in April. That check was immediately flagged by the bank.
JPMorgan Chase Bank confirmed to the Starke bank that the checks were fraudulent.
