Roommates Guilty of Taking $285,000 Joyride to NYC on Stolen Check

Two roommates were convicted Thursday of stealing a check from a Newport Beach law firm, forging its value to more than $285,000 and using the cash to splurge on a luxury trip to New York for themselves and their friends, the district attorney's office reported.

Alexa Antonella Polar, 35, of Garden Grove pleaded guilty to one felony count of forgery, and her ex-roomate Robin Johzen Pabello, 34, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of forgery and a sentencing enhancement for white collar crime over $100,000. Both were sentenced to three years of formal probation and 305 days in Orange County Jail with credit for time served.

At the time of the crimes, the women were living together in Garden Grove. Between Sept. 21 and Nov. 16, Polar and Pabello stole a $19,500 check made payable to the law firm where Polar worked as a paralegal. They removed the payee’s name and the dollar amount, then substituted in Pabello’s name and changed the value to about $285,000.

On Nov. 16, the roommates deposited the doctored check into their joint bank account through an ATM and spent some of it to fly on a private jet with some friends to New York City, where they rented five rooms at a Times Square hotel and shopped at Tiffany & Co. and Montblanc.

Polar and Pabello also obtained two cashier's checks in the amounts of $100,000 and $33,000 from the fraudulently obtained funds to buy a $3.7-million, 11,000-square-foot house in Murietta. The good times came to an end in December 2011, when the women were arrested after the issuing bank rejected the check.

In addition to their sentence, the defendants paid restitution of more than $42,000 to the receiving bank, officials said.