Man who wrote bad checks for items and them sold them for cash at pawn shops pleads guilty

A man accused of writing thousands of dollars in bad checks to businesses in Arkansas and Missouri appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court/Criminal Division November 10.

Eighty-year-old Robert Jarvis, who lists an address in Theodosia, pled guilty to the charges against him in three cases in Baxter County and two cases in Boone County.

He was put on probation for 10 years and ordered to pay victim restitution of almost $22,000.

An alias warrant was issued for Jarvis in all of his cases in the two counties on May 19 and served on October 2, meaning he did not shown up in court for almost five months.

According to information from law enforcement agencies in Baxter and Boone Counties in Arkansas and Howell, Stone, Taney and Webster Counties in Missouri, Jarvis frequently purchased merchandise with bad checks and then almost immediately sold the items for cash to pawn shops — sometimes in just over 10 minutes.

In court documents, five pawn shops are mentioned as locations where Jarvis took the merchandise he had purchased with bad checks.

The long list of purchases includes audio equipment, zero turn mowers, power tools, computer equipment, generators, chain saws, lawn trimmer, groceries, gift cards, an electric smoker, battery booster packs, guitars, flutes and other musical equipment, a commercial floor jack, a pellet grill, children’s toys, a pumpkin and Hershey’s chocolate.

At one point, Jarvis rented a U-Haul truck and failed to return it as promised. The truck was eventually reported as stolen. Jarvis is alleged to have used the truck to pick up a zero-turn mower he had purchased with a bad check in Boone County and to haul the item to a pawn shop on the same day of the purchase where he sold it for $1,000 cash.

Jarvis is reported to have left the business with the mower at 5:30 p.m. and sold it to a pawn shop about 11 minutes later.

The Boone County business where Jarvis purchased the mower also reported that he requested assistance in loading the mower into the U-Haul truck.

The U-Haul truck was finally located in Branson and Jarvis was arrested on October 8 last year. When Boone County sheriff’s investigators traveled to Branson and interviewed him, Jarvis admitted he “was not being threatened or forced to participate in the merchandise bought with bad checks and then pawned for cash scheme.”

Jarvis was reported to have given no reason for his activity except to say he was “just trying to live, trying to get by.” He indicated on an affidavit of indigency filled out after his arrest in Baxter County that he was retired and Social Security was his only income.

He said he had been living in the U-Haul. On his affidavit of indigency, he also noted that his previous residence had been “repossessed” because he was “underwater on the loan and interest.”

Between June 20 and September 5 last year, Jarvis passed five bad checks in Baxter County to various businesses and more hot checks in Boone County.

When Jarvis’ bond in Baxter County was set, a condition of the bond was that he not have access to a checkbook.

In court documents, Jarvis is alleged to have had two accomplices – 45-year-old Patricia Lynn Wille who lists an address in Thornfield, Missouri and is also known as Patricia Rush and Patricia Erter. The other person is 44-year-old Joshua Bell who has listed an address in Harrison on court documents.

Criminal cases are opened in Boone County on Wille and Bell and they are both due back in court in early February next year.

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