PRISON OFFICER FROM NEVADA ACCUSED OF SCAM

A Nevada prison officer has been charged with passing counterfeit checks in an alleged interstate mail-order scam that has connections in Salt Lake City.

A criminal complaint filed Friday in 3rd Circuit Court charges Richard Ward, 50, Carson City, Nev., with four counts of forgery, a second-degree felony.Ward is accused of tendering four bogus cashier's checks that drew upon "International Merchant Bank," which does not exist under the laws of the Federal Reserve Bank system, according to the complaint.

He was arrested Wednesday at a downtown hotel after a United Parcel Service employee delivered to him four packages worth more than $19,000 and was paid with four allegedly bogus cashier's checks.

According to police, confiscated documents indicate the packages were going to be "laundered" by several shipping companies before arriving to their final destinations. Three of the shipments would end up in southern Florida, the fourth at the North Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City.

Ward was employed as a prison guard at that facility, police confirmed.