AUBURN – The leader of an elaborate forgery-scheme gang that cashed checks drawn on accounts at the local jail and two courts pleaded guilty Thursday.

James Kirk Carver, 26, of Auburn was the final member of the group of nearly a dozen who agreed to go to jail rather than stand trial in connection with the scam. In exchange for his guilty plea to Class A forgery and two unrelated lesser crimes, Carver agreed to a cap of a nine-year sentence with four years suspended. He will be sentenced later.

The scheme involved more than $35,000 in bogus checks cashed or attempted to be cashed at local banks.

The checks were drawn on active accounts at the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department, Androscoggin County Superior Court and Maine District Court.

The sheriff’s account contained Androscoggin County Jail inmates’ money banked at the time of their bookings. The fake court checks were written on accounts to which a defendant’s bail was paid and refunded, but contained no taxpayer money, a court clerk said.

On May 28, the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department pieced together the elements of the scheme after a manager at the Bank of America branch on Lisbon Street in Lewiston called to report a man and woman had tried to cash a check for $2,000 on an account from the Sheriff’s Department’s Inmate Disbursement Account.

The couple left without any cash, saying they had to go check on their children, court records said.

Sheriff’s Department Detective Sgt. William Gagne met with the bank manager, who showed him the check and said the man showed a Massachusetts driver’s license when asked for identification. The manager issued a “fraud” alert to other banks.

Gagne noticed the word “sheriff” was misspelled “shiriff” and instead of reading “Turner Street,” the address on the check read “Turnner st.”

The term “fine overpayments” appeared in the memo line of the check, but that wasn’t the purpose of that bank account, Gagne wrote in court records.

When the bogus check was compared to actual checks held by the sheriff’s officer in charge of that account, the bogus one was tan, in contrast to the real checks, which were a different color, Gagne wrote.

In an SUV driven by Carver’s girlfriend, Ashley Banville, 23, of Auburn, police found a laptop computer and printer with a blank check still in it that matched the bogus ones cashed at local banks. Police also found generic blank checks from an office supply store.

Androscoggin County Deputy District Attorney Craig Turner said Thursday that Carver printed the counterfeit checks, then recruited others to cash the checks at local TD Banknorth and Bank of America branches. Carver would keep most of the money and share a smaller portion with the check cashers, Turner said. Carver apparently used the money to support a drug habit. Syringes and heroin test kits were found in the SUV, Turner said.

Most of the others who pleaded guilty to felonies in connection with the forgery ring agreed to sentences of three years in prison with most of that time suspended, Turner said. All served some time in jail, received probation and were ordered to pay restitution.