A Forger Checked

In the entire spectrum of criminal specialties, from crude second-story work to deft embezzlement, none requires more patiently marshaled skills than those of consummate check forgery. The practitioner must combine the nerve of a sugar-futures trader, the painstaking craftsmanship of a calligrapher and the face-to-face charm of a successful encyclopedia salesman. He must win people's trust in order to clean them out. Where other criminals can hope to muster enough luck to succeed, the passer of bum checks relies on finesse and self-confidence honed to fine arts.

One of the maestros of them all is an innocent-looking man of 50 who calls himself, among many aliases, Michael Leo Thompson. He has moved slightly less rubber than Malaysia. Authorities suspect that for most of the past 20 years in at least 26 states, he has cashed bad checks almost once a day, fleecing the credulous of close to $1 million. Now Thompson's spectacular career has come to an end. When he tried to cash a phony $93.40 payroll check at a small hotel in Rantoul, Ill., the manager's wife grew suspicious and stalled him while her husband called police. Soon after, Thompson phoned his ex-wife Vera in Peoria from the Rantoul jail, and he almost sounded relieved: "Honey, I've finally been busted."

Thompson's modus was dismayingly simple. He usually worked towns with populations between 7,000 and 25,000, where he reckoned that people are more trusting than in street-wise big cities. Stores and gas stations in these towns often stock the blank counter checks of state banks, and he would simply go in and collect a clutch of such paper. Then with a shoe-box-sized checkwriting machine, he would imprint the amount of the check in a neat, official-looking script. The amounts were always the same: a small odd-dollar figure that seemed like a reasonable weekly wage. For years it was $89.25; inflation recently obliged him to up it to $93.40. Beneath the signature line he rubberstamped such phony firm names as Baynard Heating & Cooling or Tri-County Sheet Metal Works. He cashed checks at hotels and motels.

Thompson became a legend among state cops. "We were always one step behind him," says Indiana Police Captain Doug Buck. Declared Thompson last week before dictating his 13-page confession: "I wouldn't attempt to guess how many states I've worked." He immediately ticked off eight. He had been arrested for check forgery only once before: in Peoria in 1974, where he posted bond, quickly jumped it and was back forging in a matter of hours.

Grifter's Gift. How did Thompson work his con for so long? "He was a genius at his craft," says Robert Steigmann, Champaign County assistant state's attorney. "He had the ability to snow anybody." Ruddy-faced, ingratiating and gregarious, Thompson had the grifter's gift for spinning a convincing yarn. His face stamped with Main Street openness, Thompson never carried a fake I.D. "I don't imagine I've been asked for identification over half a dozen times," he says. Countless WANTED flyers distributed around the country gave rough descriptions of him.

The biggest mystery remains what he did with all the money. He was carrying only $23.93 when he was arrested. Authorities speculate that he may have sent much of the take to his former wife (they were divorced in 1974); she firmly denies the charge.

Now Thompson faces the prospect of residing in an Illinois prison for up to 40 months. Other states have asked for information on him and are making extradition plans. Yet the forger will not devote the rest of his career to making license plates. So impressed are Illinois investigators with Thompson's exploits that they have offered him a guest lectureship. If the offer is approved, he will be escorted out of the pokey for brief periods to explain to state police just how he did it.

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