Orange County Sheriff’s Department employee pleads guilty to fraudulently using her grandmother’s bank accounts, credit cards 

An employee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of identity theft after she forged checks and fraudulently used credit cards in her grandmother’s name. 

A release from the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that Roxana C. Laub admitted to forging her grandmother’s signature on more than 20 checks from her grandmother’s bank account – making them payable to herself – without her grandmother’s knowledge or permission. 

She then deposited the forged checks into her own bank account in the amount of approximately $45,000 over 23 months from December 2015 to January 2017, the Justice Department said. 

Laub also posed as her 75-year-old grandmother when calling her grandmother’s bank to request information related to her account, officials added. 

“After later admitting she was the caller instead of her grandmother, Laub put her grandmother on the phone, who informed bank personnel that she was unaware of the checks payable to Laub,” the DOJ said. “After Laub took the phone back and tried to change the subject, the bank personnel asked to speak to Laub’s grandmother again, but Laub claimed that her grandmother was feeling ill and not available.” 

Beginning in March 2020, Laub, 33, fraudulently used her grandmother’s credit card on multiple occasions without her knowledge; she spent thousands of dollars on personal expenditures, including meals at restaurants in Santa Ana and bars in West Hollywood as well as a trip to a nightclub in Las Vegas, officials said. 

She then used another one of her grandmother’s cards to make more than $14,000 in payments for bills she had run up on the other cards, the DOJ continued. 

According to the plea agreement, Laub, a resident of Santa Ana, seemed to show remorse for her actions; agents uncovered text messages sent by Laub to a family member where she admitted “I know what I did is unforgivable.” 

Laub, who federal officials say is on administrative duty at OCSD, has agreed to pay back all the money she stole from her grandmother, whose name was not released. 

Her sentencing date was scheduled for April 9, 2025. She faces a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison for the bank fraud charge and up to 15 years for the identity theft charge, officials stated. 

Federal officials investigating the case were assisted by the FDIC Office of the Inspector General and the Long Beach Police Department, the latter of which provided “substantial assistance” to the investigation, the DOJ said. 

If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been a victim of financial fraud, help is available via the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833 FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).

The hotline is staffed seven days a week from 3 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific Time. English, Spanish and other languages are available.

More information about the Department’s elder justice efforts can be found on the Department’s Elder Justice website, www.elderjustice.gov.