Man jailed on forgery charges

COEUR d’ALENE — A man is facing felony charges after police said he forged checks worth more than $13,000.

Dean R. Dufault, 70, is charged with three counts of burglary, three counts of forgery and one count of grand theft. 

The charges stem from July 2023, when a funeral home in Pasco, Wash., reported to police that three checks were allegedly forged and deposited in Kootenai County. 

A funeral home employee had mailed three checks, totaling about $4,600, to a monument business in Meridian in early 2024, according to court records. Weeks later, the employee noticed that three separate checks for $4,500 had been debited from the funeral home's bank account. 

The employee told police that the check numbers were the same as the ones she had mailed weeks before, but the dollar amounts had been changed and payee name on the checks had been changed to Dean R. Dufault. 

The three checks were deposited Feb. 2, 2023 at U.S. Bank locations in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls, according to court records. 

Police obtained security footage that appeared to show Dufault depositing one of the checks at the U.S. Bank on Fourth Street. 

Prosecutors filed criminal charges in July 2024 and a judge issued a summons to Dufault. When Dufault failed to appear in court, a judge issued a $50,000 warrant for his arrest. 

The warrant was served to Dufault in the Spokane County jail, according to court records, and he was booked into the Kootenai County jail. 

He remains in jail on $50,000 bail.