After they stole personal and financial information from 44 people in King and Pierce counties, Junette Short and her band of fraudsters and identity thieves used counterfeit checks and credit cards to suck money from their bank accounts.

On Aug. 7 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, Superior Court Judge Laura Middaugh sentenced the 34-year-old Pierce County woman to seven years in prison on nine counts of identity theft to which she had pleaded guilty on June 30, and for possession of a stolen vehicle, possession of stolen property, and an additional charge of identity theft from two separate cases that had been filed in 2014.

Among the many businesses victimized were a Walgreens store in Auburn and the Muckleshoot Casino

In the state’s brief in support of an exceptional sentence, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Mafe Rajul and Deputy Prosecutor Pete Lewicki argued for an exceptional sentence of 10 years in prison for crimes that the state of Washington deems “a major economic offense.”

“The monetary loss was substantially greater than the typical loss for identity theft offenses. Short’s behavior involved a high degree of sophistication and planning, and the series of offenses occurred over a long period of time,” they wrote.

According to court records, as a result of Short’s behavior, one of her victims, can no longer obtain student loans and has had to drop out of nursing school.

According to court papers, Short’s boyfriend and other members of her ring — all of them since arrested, charged and convicted — stole to obtain account information so that she could make the fraudulent checks and credit cards. Most of the financial information and personal information stolen during Short’s three-month-long identity theft operation in 2013 and 2014 came from thefts of large residential mailboxes, from blue postal collection boxes in King, Pierce, Lewis and Thurston counties, and from vehicle prowlings and residential burglaries.

Known amongst her associates for “being good at making credit cards,” Short, according to court papers, had at her home a card embosser and an encoder that she operated through her laptop, and a computer with a check-making program equipped with a laser printer that could print checks with magnetic ink.

According to court papers, Short used the checks and credit cards at places like Fred Meyer, Target, Costco, Walmart and the Muckleshoot Casino. Investigators found that between Nov. 22, 2013 and Feb. 16, 2014, Short made 26 fraudulent transactions using 10 different checking account numbers and eight different makers’ identities at Fred Meyer alone. The total loss associated with the 44 counterfeit checks presented at different retailers during that time was $7,473.91. Telecheck reported $5,077.30 in additional fraudulent check transactions between Nov. 17, 2013 and Feb. 3, 2014. This figure does not include additional declined transactions of $15,307 or fraudulent credit card charges. The actual losses totaled $27,506, an average of $9,168 each month, according to court records.

When Short made the credit cards, she used one victim’s name and a different victim’s account information. In one case she used a victim’s identity not only to buy items but to rent a car — she crashed it — and to identify herself to police.

On Jan. 22, 2014 officers following up a report of stolen mail contacted Short at home and found her with stolen mail belonging to 100 individuals.

The King County Sheriff’s Office, the Seattle Police Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case.