WASHINGTON – It happens a lot this time of year. A young person shows up at a supermarket entrance asking for a donation for the local high school band, football team or other cause.
But if people aren’t careful, they can be ripped off.
Two men have been arrested for soliciting donations outside a drug store on Chain Bridge Road in McLean, Va., for a local high school football team.
Fairfax County police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell says they had a sign-up list for everyone who donated, and there were more than two dozen signatures on the paper.
“These two young men were posing as football players, and offering elaborate stories about the team, the record and that sort of thing,” Caldwell says.
They said they went to Thurgood Marshall High School in Washington. But the school is called Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School and it doesn’t have a football team. Additionally, the men weren’t students.
Kevin Crouch of Temple Hills, Md., and Jerell Henry of D.C., both 20, were charged with forgery.
They were caught on Aug. 11 when a woman who donated $20 went online and checked out the school. She reported it to police.
Caldwell says that’s what anyone should do before donating money. In most cases a high school fundraiser will have a website associated with it where people can donate online or they will allow donations to be sent by mail to the school.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter.
