Woman pleads guilty to theft for withdrawing $4K from woman’s Crystal Lake bank account

An Indiana woman currently in prison for similar offenses in Cook County who has pending charges in Will County has pleaded guilty to theft for stealing $4,000 from an elderly woman’s Crystal Lake bank account.

Cassandra Bass, 62, of Demotte, Indiana, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of $500 to $10,000, a Class 3 felony, and was sentenced to two years in prison, according to McHenry County court records.

She is required to serve half of the prison term, which she will serve concurrently with the sentence she is serving in the Logan Correctional Facility on four Cook County convictions. Those cases include charges from 2023 of forgery, aggravated identity theft, fraud and defrauding a financial institution, according to Cook County records. She is receiving credit for the 197 days she spent in custody at the McHenry County jail. When released from prison, she will serve two years and six months of mandatory supervised release.

She also is ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution to the woman from whose account she withdrew the money, according to the sentencing order signed by McHenry County Judge Tiffany Davis.

In exchange for Bass’s guilty plea, which was entered Tuesday, six additional counts were dismissed, including aggravated identity theft of a person 60 or older, identity theft, forgery, unlawful possession of a fraudulent identification card and unlawful possession of a fraudulent driver’s license, according to court records.

Bass was accused of committing the Crystal Lake offense, in which she falsified a bank slip to withdraw $4,000 from the woman’s account at the American Community Bank on June 1, 2023. At the time, Bass also had in her possession a false identification card and driver’s license with the victim’s name, according to the indictment.

In May 2023, Bass was arrested in Joliet after allegedly trying to fraudulently obtain $15,000 at a bank from another person’s account that she claimed belonged to her, Joliet police said at the time. She is charged in Will County with identity theft of $10,000 to $100,000 and burglary. The case still is pending, according to Will County court records.