Woman with fraud history involving cars gets state prison time

WEST CHESTER >> A woman with a string of criminal cases involving fraudulent activity, including purchasing high-end automobiles without the financial resources to pay for them, pleaded guilty to one of those offenses in Chester County Common Pleas Court.

Laurie Rager admitted passing two bad checks to a Mercedes Benz dealership in Easttown last year in order to obtain a luxury sedan, a scheme similar to one she used just a few days afterward in Lancaster County.

Rager, 46, who told Judge Alito Rovito that she had a degree in cosmetology, pleaded guilty to felony theft by deception and was sentenced to two to seven years in state prison, a term she will serve alongside other similar sentences she is currently serving.

Rager appeared by video link in Rovito’s courtroom from the State Correctional Institution for women at Muncy, where she is serving sentences for bad checks and theft from Berks and Lancaster counties.

Assistant District Attorney Justin Roberts, who prosecuted the case here, told Rovito that the terms of her prison sentence were enhanced in the agreement he reached with Rager’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Meredith Copeland, because of the number of similar cases she has on her record.

He said that the theft from the Euro Motorcars Devon dealership in November was one of nine similar crimes she committed in the late summer and fall of 2021. A check of court records shows she had arrests for bad checks and similar charges in Centre, Cumberland, Dauphin, Juniata, and Lebanon counties, as well as Berks, Chester and Lancaster.

Rager did not make any statement in entering her guilty plea, besides telling Rovito she understood what she was doing and agreed to give up her right to a trial on the charges.

According to Roberts, on Nov. 6, Rager walked into the dealership on Lancaster Avenue and made a deal to buy a 2018 S Class 560 sedan for $83,000. She got in the car and drove away after giving the salesman a personal check for the full amount.

But a day or so later, the bank on which the check was drawn notified the dealership that the account was frozen or blocked and that the payment could not be credited. The dealership got in touch with Rager and told her she would have to send a cashier’s check for the sale price. Instead, she sent another personal check from the same account. That, too, was returned.

She was arrested in December by Easttown police Officer Kevin Price and was sent to Chester County Prison after being unable to post bail in January.

Before then, however, on Nov. 9, Rager purchased a 2015 Mercedes Benz ML350 from the Mercedes Benz of Lancaster dealership in East Petersburg with another bad check, this time for $25,000. She then resold the car in Delaware.

Her arrest in Berks County came after she passed bad checks in Reading on Nov. 5, a day before she went to the Devon dealership. The facts of that case could not be immediately determined. She was sentenced to serve one to five years in state prison for the offense, however.

Her prison term from Lancaster is 1½ to 7 years. She has pleaded guilty to other charges in the other counties and is awaiting sentencing in some, including Cumberland.

Roberts said the sedan that Rager got from the Easttown dealership was eventually recovered.