One-time Senate candidate arrested on check fraud charges

ST. CROIX — Police on Tuesday arrested the owner of an alleged unlicensed cleaning business for stealing and cashing checks. Ke’Shawn Louis, 26, faces four counts of grand larceny and four counts of obtaining money by false pretense.

The V.I. Police Economic Crimes Unit began investigating complaints from two people in May 2023, according to an affidavit filed in V.I. Superior Court. That investigation determined that Louis removed checks from a client’s home on St. Thomas and from another man’s former residence on St. John — after evicting the man on behalf of the property owners.

He later requested more than a thousand dollars from the property owners for carrying out the eviction, but he acknowledged during an interview with police that he never initiated the eviction process in court and was not aware that he needed to.

Louis allegedly tried to cash three checks taken from the St. John man at a gas station on St. Croix. The owner of the service station paid out money for the first two at a combined value of $1,350, according to an interview with investigators. The checks did not clear when the owner later attempted to deposit them at his bank.