The Daviess County Circuit Clerk’s office is warning residents about a scam where the caller is alleging people are being fined for missing jury duty, and requesting payment immediately.
The Clerk’s Office posted the following message to Facebook on Thursday:
The Office of the Daviess County Circuit Clerk, Jennifer Besecker has been made aware of a scam involving a caller stating that Judge Lisa Jones has assessed a fine for failure to report to jury duty and that it must be paid immediately. THIS IS A SCAM! Judge Lisa Jones has not assessed any fines for failing to report for jury duty, nor do our offices call demanding payment.
If you receive a phone call, please immediately hang up and do not give out your information! If you need to verify the status of a warrant feel free to call the office at 270-687-7327.
A similar scam attempt was being made earlier this year. At that time, Jones said they don’t 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,” Jones said in January. “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.”
In January, Sheriff Barry Smith said the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office 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 previously. “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 previously. “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.”
