A St. Cloud man awaiting disposition on multiple counts of offering forged checks made his first appearance on Monday in Mower County District Court.

Ryan Joseph Voelker, 33, has been charged with felony check forgery-make or alter a check and felony check forgery-offer/possess with intent to defraud.

According to the court complaint, an officer was called on June 26 to the Austin Hy-Vee regarding a forged check. The officer met with the assistant manager, who showed him a forged check that purportedly belonged to a McDonald’s employee. The check was made out to “Ryan Voelker” for the sum of $448.93.

The manager said the same check had been cashed at the customer service counter 40 minutes earlier. The check supposedly came from the McDonald’s on West Oakland Avenue and had Voelker’s driver’s license number on it. Hy-Vee employees became suspicious, called the McDonald’s restaurant and were told that paper checks had not been issued to employees for six years.

Police spoke to the employee who took the check and learned Voelker claimed he had “just started working” at McDonald’s and did not have direct deposit yet.

The officer retrieved photographs of Voelker and his vehicle from Hy-Vee. He then went to the West Oakland McDonald’s and showed the check to the manager, who said it was not “real” and that they did not issue paper checks. She also said that Voelker was not a current or former employee.

A review of Voelker’s criminal history shows prior convictions for check forgery, offering forged checks, theft, financial transaction card fraud, aggravated robbery and burglary. He is currently awaiting disposition on four charges of offering forged checks from four separate incidents in Freeborn County.

Voelker will appear in court again on Sept. 9.