A 38-year-old Belleville woman was charged with crimes related to identity theft two days after police escorted her from her home in the 2800 block of Fairway Drive in The Orchards neighborhood.

Julie Pusa-Fessel, of 2820 Fairway Drive, a home she rented about a month ago, was charged Wednesday with four counts of unlawful possession of fraudulent driver’s licences.

Bail for Pusa-Fessel was set at $50,000. She remained in jail Wednesday evening at the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.

“She wrote two checks to Strano Realty on Carlyle Avenue and they returned invalid,” said Scott Weymouth, chief of investigations with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.

St. Clair County Deputy Ken McHughes took a report from Strano. And when he looked at the checks, he saw they had different names, Weymouth said. “One of the checks was for $4,000,” Weymouth said.

When McHughes ran the suspect’s name, he learned that Monroe County had an active warrant on her for forgery.

“He set up surveillance at the home, and when she was leaving the Fairway Drive residence at 8:54 a.m. Tuesday, she was arrested,” Weymouth said.

“After he arrested her and did a custodial search, he found other fictitious forms of identification on her,” Weymouth said.

Accompanied by several investigators, St. Clair County Sheriff Richard “Rick” Watson rode up to the front of the Fairway Drive residence Thursday afternoon. The officers were in unmarked police cars and armed with a search warrant to search the residence for other evidence that could possibly lead to more charges against the woman, Watson said. It was 2:22 p.m. when they arrived.

Watson credited his investigators with doing a good job.

St. Clair County sheriff’s investigators, Jason Robertson, Sgt. George Mokriakow, Maurice McMiller, Bryan Cregger, Scott Toth and Frank Bennett emerged from unmarked police cars carrying large thick brown evidence bags that had Walmart written on them. They put on plastic gloves. Robertson carried a still camera and a video camera to photograph items inside the residence.

They worked inside for more than an hour. But at 3:33 p.m., they came out carrying two large evidence bags and two boxes that appeared to have a shredder, software and a computer inside of them. Neighbors who were arriving home at the time the police were on scene said they were shocked because their neighborhood is normally very quiet.

“Who wouldn’t be shocked to see something like this in their neighborhood. It doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in, you wouldn’t want that,” a neighbor said.

Police said the suspect has a son who is about 6 years old. It was not immediately clear where he was.