By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


After being charged with stealing credit cards and checks from homes where he had been hired to do work, a Highland Township man is due back in court next week.

33-year-old Kenneth Michael Hill was charged last month with three counts of uttering and publishing, two counts of larceny from a building, forgery, attempted larceny of $20,000 or more, and fraudulent use of a financial transaction device.

The charges stem from two different cases. The first case involved the theft of five checks from a woman, who said four were forged for just over $10,000 using her husband's signature. Hill is also alleged to have created a fake email account using her husband’s name in a failed attempt to purchase more than $26,000 of merchandise from Ohio Power Tool.

A second woman said she hired Hill for a plumbing repair but after receiving a bill for more than $4,100 from Home Depot she realized that checks and credit cards were missing. Two of the checks, one for $800 and the other for $1,800, were reportedly written out to Ken Hill. A Livingston County Sheriff’s deputy previously testified that Hill admitted to purchasing tools using a stolen credit card.

Hill is scheduled to appear in front of 53rd District Court Judge Daniel Bain on May 18th for a probable cause conference. If convicted as charged, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.