A scammer is making phone calls impersonating a deputy with the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office, reportedly making threats that warrants have been issued for arrest or that people owe money. In at least one instance, a witness tried calling DCSO about the scammer’s warrant threat, and upon leaving a message was called back almost immediately by the scammer.
One person who was contacted by the scammer described their experience to Owensboro Times. The scammer, who falsely claimed they were Sergeant Lee Blanton (an actual deputy at DCSO) said an arrest warrant had been issued because the person failed to show up for jury duty.
When the witness called DCSO and asked to speak to Blanton about the scammer’s warrant threat, they were supposedly patched through to the deputy. The witness left a message and was contacted by the scammer within a few minutes of leaving the message.
Knowing they were the intended target of a scam, the person made a couple more calls and was able to inform both DCSO and the Circuit Clerk of what happened.
Daviess County Sheriff Barry Smith said they’ve had a few people calling DCSO today regarding the scam calls. He said multiple people reported the scammer was impersonating Blanton, but noted that the scammer could claim to be someone else on future calls.
Smith said he wasn’t sure what happened regarding the call that was supposed to be transferred to Blanton, and the scammer calling the witness back about the message. In a social media post, DCSO also said the scammer has “gone as far as recording our voicemail.” Smith said their IT department was looking into the issues, but said he could not speak on their behalf at this time.
Smith said most of the reported phone calls were, as in the case detailed to OT, in reference to the missing jury duty.
“Where the conversation went from there, we’re not really sure,” Smith said. “But we obviously know it’s a scam.”
Daviess County Circuit Court Judge Lisa Payne Jones said they don’t even issue arrest warrants for people who miss jury duty.
“We would do multiple things before we would ever attempt to issue a warrant for somebody for failure to appear for jury duty because you never know what the person’s circumstances are — if they’re sick, or they’ve been in an accident, or had something happen,” she said. “We would try to contact them and find out what’s going on and try to have them show up on another day if they can’t show up that day.”
Jones added that when someone doesn’t show for jury duty, the court would try to proceed with the jurors that actually show up.
“If it looks like we’re getting really low and there’s not enough jurors and we’re going to have to declare a mistrial or not be able to try the case, then we’ve tried to call the jurors ourselves and tried to get them there to the courthouse,” Jones said. “I think a couple times we’ve even sent a deputy out to their house or to their job to try and locate them to get them to come to jury duty, but we’ve never issued warrants for them.”
Jones said due to COVID-19, the court has been expanding the size of their jury pool to make sure they have enough jurors who will show up to accommodate anybody who isn’t able to attend for illness- or work-related reasons.
Smith said DCSO won’t call about warrants, jury duty, or missing court dates. He said no one should give out any personal information if they receive a phone call about those issues.
“We’re not going to ask for any personal information over the telephone,” Smith said. “We’re definitely not going to ask for any kind of money to be wired or anything like that.”
Daviess County Circuit Clerk Jennifer Besecker was similarly emphatic in saying that their agency would never request payments over the phone, nor would they inform someone of an arrest warrant via a phone call.
“My office, my staff, the Sheriff’s Office, the city police, the state police would never call anyone telling them those things,” Besecker said. “We’re never going to call them and tell them that we’re issuing a warrant for their arrest for failing to appear for jury duty or on a jury summons.”
Anyone who receives a phone call that seems like it could be a scam is encouraged to call DCSO at 270-685-8444 to speak to a supervisor or the person that supposedly called.
