DECATUR - Charges of felony conspiracy were dismissed Monday against Mary A. Hardamon, 49, in Macon County Circuit Court as her trial was about to start, although she was informed by Assistant State's Attorney David Spence that the charges may be filed again in the future.

Hardamon was charged in connection with her alleged involvement in the posting of fraudulent cashier's checks as bail for her cousin, Monica D. Nicholson, 39, in September 2006 that freed Nicholson from the Macon County Jail.

Nicholson promptly fled the state and was a fugitive until she was apprehended by U.S. marshals on Sept. 27, 2007, as she got off a cruise ship from Alaska.

Nicholson had been working as a steward on the ship, Spence said. She was discovered when the cruise line filed a roster of the ship's crew with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and authorities spotted one of Nicholson's known aliases on the list, he said.

She was prosecuted last year in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, Mo., and convicted of charges involving bank fraud and counterfeit securities, Spence said. She is serving a sentence in a minimum-security federal facility near Lexington, Ky., he said.

Authorities have recordings of telephone calls made by Nicholson while in the county jail to Hardamon in which the two women conspire to obtain the fraudulent cashier's checks that would be used to free Nicholson.

"Someone has to identify the voice on the tapes as that of Mary Hardamon and the only person who can do that is Monica Nicholson," Spence said. "We knew Nicholson was in federal custody but the Federal Bureau of Prisons has listed her as being in transit for several months. We did not find out until late last week where she was incarcerated. By then it was too late to get her back her for the trial."

Two men were charged with Hardamon, Steven L. Lockett, 46, and Ricky J. Meeks, 48. Lockett pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy on May 8, 2007, and was sentenced to three years in prison. Meeks was released from jail on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond in February 2007 and his case continued until further order of the court. It remains pending.

In a complaint filed in court in October 2006 to obtain an arrest warrant for Lockett, Macon County sheriff's detective Jason Brown outlined Nicholson's scheme based on telephone calls she made from the jail. He said Nicholson instructed Hardamon to obtain cashier's checks from a bank for her bond and that of a male jail inmate.

The cashier's checks were to be one-one hundredth of the value of the bond and were then altered. For example, for a bond of $2,700 the check need only be $27, Nicholson told Hardamon.

Brown said the bogus cashier's checks listed "Ed Bay" as the remitter. He said when Lockett's picture was shown to employees of the First National Bank in Cairo where the checks were obtained, a teller identified Lockett as "Ed Bay."

Meeks' voice could be heard on three-way calls he placed to Nicholson and some of the other conspirators during which the scheme to obtain the fraudulent checks was discussed, Brown said.

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