Once she was an example to others, that an addict could become clean and sober and be a success.

Saturday, May 26, 2001

Once she was an example to others, that an addict could become clean and sober and be a success.

Today, she is charged with a credit card crime and if found guilty will return to the same place, the Mower County Jail, where she once guarded prisoners as a detention officer.

Sherry Lee Dahmen, 46, of 912 Second Ave. NE, was charged April 22 with one felony count of aiding and abetting financial transaction card fraud.

District Judge Donald E. Rysavy set bail at $20,000 after her initial appearance in court.

One of Rysavy’s bail conditions was that she no use checks or credit cards in possession "other than the defendant’s own."

Public records show Dahmen and other family members were arrested for possession of stolen property decades ago in Mapleview.

The story of her recovery from drug and alcohol addiction to become a Mower County Jail detention officer, when Wayne P. Goodnature was county sheriff, is well-known.

Her health forced her to leave her employment with the Mower County Sheriff’s Department in the mid-1990s.

Now, she is making headlines again, but her own alleged crimes are intertwined with those of others who preyed upon an elderly couple and used their identities to go on shopping sprees.

The Dahmen case was investigated by Glen E. Farnum, a detective with the Mower County Sheriff’s Department, but quickly the Austin Police Department became involved as the list of accomplices grew.

According to Farnum’s criminal complaint, it started when LeRoy Wollschlager reported his wallet stolen April 9. Wollschlager told investigators the wallet was taken from his pants, while he was at the Lansing Corners Supper Club on the evening of April 8.

Wollschlager said he had supper at the club with a friend, paid the bill with cash from his wallet and returned it to his right-rear pants pocket.

The man had $30 in cash from a GM MasterCard and an MSNB credit card, a US Bank debit card and a Sears credit card as well as his driver’s license and various membership cards.

When he and his friend left the supper club, they "bumped into" a white couple entering the place.

Early the following morning, Wollschlager received a message on his answering machine from MBNA Credit Card Services, advising they needed to speak to him to verify a $1,900 purchase on his MSNB credit card.

Alarmed, Wollschlager immediately contacted the GM MasterCard Service Center and was advised that his card had been used to charge about $500 in items.

Two sheriff’s deputies checked into the report of possible credit card fraud. They learned Wollschlager’s GM MasterCard had been used to withdraw $980 in the course of seven separate transactions at Austin Auto Truck Plaza, Commercial Federal Bank and Apollo Liquor, all in Austin, plus two other unknown locations.

The next day, April 10, deputies checked the Austin locations to see whether they had any video surveillance cameras at their ATM machines.

At the same time, another report came in that $1,490 worth of electronic equipment was purchased with the stolen credit card at Audio King in Rochester.

Surveillance tapes were collected from local ATM outlets. The tapes showed a female, wearing a multicolored bandana using Wollschlager’s credit card to withdraw money.

Authorities worked fast and by April 13, an Austin police detective was tipped to a person who may have had one of Wollschlager’s stolen credit cards in their possession.

The man turned over electronics equipment that he said he bought from Dahmen. The defendant wanted the man to sign the credit card slips, because the card was made out to a man, according to the complaint. The man agreed and then Dahmen drove him and a female friend to Rochester, where they used the stolen credit card on a shopping spree.

Dahmen returned to the man’s residence April 9 in her black Mustang and wearing, he told police, a multicolored bandana. They went to another friend’s apartment at Mandolin Apartments, where they talked about being spotted by an Austin police officer while at the Apollo Liquor Store using the stolen credit card, according to reports.

Dahmen told everyone she had shopped at Albert Lea and Owatonna with the stolen credit card as well as Rochester, reports indicate.

By April 19, a friend of Dahmen was positively identified as one of the women spotted in the Apollo Liquor Store at the time the stolen credit card was used there. At the same time, the GM MasterCard center notified authorities that a fraudulent credit card in the name of "Bernell Nelson" was being used to make purchases.

A conservator for Bernell Nelson told authorities she suspected the people who occupied an apartment in the same building with the man while his wife, Rosa, lived elsewhere with stealing her client’s canceled checks and other mail from his mailbox.

The conservator identified two suspects in the fraudulent use of Bernell Nelson’s name to obtain credit purchases.

Then, another Austin police detective received a tip that purchases were made at the Bergdale Harley-Davidson Store at Faribault using a fraudulent credit card bearing Nelson’s name. Other purchases were made at Target in Austin and Kmart in Albert Lea with the same fraudulent credit card and checks to Nelson’s account.

A granddaughter of the Nelsons came forward and told investigators she heard from friends that one of the suspects was the person forging checks on her grandparents’ names. The suspect was interviewed April 20 and she told investigators she went to the Faribault motorcycle shop on the day the fraudulent credit card and checks were used to make purchases.

The suspect said she was accompanied by Dahmen, who gave her other stolen credit cards to use there, because she (Dahmen) was known to store personnel.

The suspect kept a single sweatshirt made with the purchases while Dahmen took the other items, reports indicate.

To date, no other charges have been filed against any other suspects in the case.

Dahmen is accused of a felony crime, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, if convicted in court.

Call Lee Bonorden at 434-2232 or e-mail him at lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com.