Full Notification

On September 7, 2014, an Ann Arbor Twp resident received a telephone call on their home land line from a person pretending to be from the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office (Officer Frank Lewis, badge #7642” with the “Washtenaw County Warrants Division” located at “3144 Washtenaw). The subject told the resident that his wife (the subject had the resident's wife's actual name) was sent a summons for Federal jury duty on a past date. His wife failed to show up at court on a past date for Federal jury duty, so a citation/fine was issued against her. The subject told the resident that he had two choices:

1. Appear before Judge (Subject named an actual local Magistrate, not a Judge) to get new court date/exemption.
2. Purchase a green dot money pack from Walgreens (or anywhere else that sells them) and put $500.00 on the card.

Our resident asked the subject (“Officer Frank Lewis”) if he could speak with his Commander. The subject gave the phone to another person. the resident asked the second person why they were calling his wife on a Sunday. The second subject responded that a lot of people did not respond to the summons so they have to call on Sunday. The subject provided our resident with a callback number. They told the resident to call them back at that number once he gets to the Walgreens. They told the resident that once he buys the card to scratch off the back of the card to expose the 14 digit number. Our resident went to Walgreens and confirmed the money packs exist but he became suspicious and did not follow through on the scam.

Our resident did a “reverse lookup” of the number the caller’s provided and that search showed a landline in Wyandotte. I asked Mary Price if they had caller ID when the subjects called their house.

On the same day, A Scio Township resident received a similar call. That resident purchased a money card at Rite Aid for the same subject and lost $500.

This is just another version of a telephone scam, in a long series of telephone scams that continue to plague the entire nation from time to time. If you receive a similar call, simply hang up. The Federal court system does not operate in this manner and does not employ local Sheriff's Offices or local courts in Federal Court matters. Washtenaw County Sheriff's Deputy Sheriffs do not identify themselves as "Officer".