Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives worked a complicated financial fraud case in which more than $580,000 was stolen from several victims. The financial crime was committed over a period of time by Terry W. Grant II, 28, a resident of Sisters Road in Ponchatoula, according to WPSO Chief Deputy Mike Haley.

Haley said that Grant devised an elaborate scheme whereby he opened numerous bank accounts using the names of other persons, and then used those accounts to obtain lines of credit, which gave him access to even more funds. This multi-faceted case required the detective division to team with the Sheriff’s Office Sales Tax Accounting division to unravel the intricacies of the case and determine specific monetary losses, Haley said.

Grant was arrested and placed in the Washington Parish Jail on Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, he remained in jail with no bond set at this time on a charge of theft. In addition to local charges, Grant is being investigated by the United States Postal Service for other financial crimes that may have occurred outside of Washington Parish.

Grant is no stranger to allegations of fraud, Haley said. He was arrested by the Bogalusa Police Department in 2009 for fraud and released after posting bond.

“Some cases are complicated,” Washington Parish Sheriff Randy Seal said, “and this is one of them. I congratulate Detective Corbet Hunt and our Sales Tax Supervisor, Jamie Butts, for their hard work in solving this complex crime.

“There is a lesson in this crime for each person; namely, guard your personal identity and financial information very carefully. In this electronic age, you never know who is snooping around.”