Two charged in check case

RALEIGH -- Two men who allegedly had the idea of stealing $850 from the Martin Luther King Celebration Committee were arrested Wednesday while trying to cash a fraudulent check written on the organization's bank account.

Namee Barakat had just opened his A.S.K. Check Cashing office at its new location on Wilmington Street when his first customers walked in about 8:30 a.m. One presented a check from the MLK Celebration Committee made out to him and said it was for work the pair had done.

"We just looked it up on the Internet," Barakat said and, as he does with any large check, called the person whose name was on the account. That was Bruce E. Lightner, who helped found the nonprofit group in 1984 and has served as its leader ever since.

Barakat asked Lightner whether he had written the check to the man.

"No," Lightner told him. "I don't even know who that is."

Lightner asked Barakat to delay the men while Lightner called the police.

"You could kind of feel it, they were in a little bit of a hurry," Barakat said. "They needed to leave. We tried to show them that we were trying to get their money together."

Officers arrived in minutes and arrested Ray Anthony Cozart, 38, and Dexter Lemar Judd, 19, both of Raleigh.

Cozart's legal history dates back at least 20 years and includes charges of breaking and entering, larceny, worthless checks, shoplifting, traffic offenses, drugs, assault, robbery, communicating threats, trespassing, possession of stolen goods and failure to pay child support.

Judd's record includes charges of assault on a child under 12, assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon and breaking and entering.

Both were charged Wednesday with obtaining property by false pretense.

Lightner said he didn't know how the men came to have the check, which he had not missed until he got the call about it.