DAVENPORT, IA - On June 14, 2012, Karol Mae McCaughey, age 39, of Long Grove, Iowa, was sentenced to five years'probation including six months' home confinement for forging securities of a private entity, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. United States District Judge John A. Jarvey also ordered McCaughey to pay $42,853.61 in restitution.

McCaughey began working for Aero Plumbing and Heating as an office manager in 1993. In late 2008 McCaughey began writing herself unauthorized checks from the company on which she forged her supervisor's signature. McCaughey then added additional purchases in the company's QuickBooks ledger to disguise the payments. McCaughey wrote herself approximately 60 unauthorized checks over two years totaling over $40,000.

The case was investigated by the Davenport, Iowa, Police Department and the United States Secret Service, and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

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SIOUX CENTER, IA (06/14/2012)(readMedia)-- Scholarships from Dordt College have been awarded to incoming freshmen, including these area students:

Natalie Dailey of East Moline, Illinois, has been awarded Hester Hollaar Literary Studies, Kuyper, and Presidential scholarships.

Scholarship details are available at www.dordt.edu/scholarships.

Dordt College is a comprehensive Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa. U.S. News & World Report, Forbes.com, Washington Monthly, and Princeton Review all list Dordt on their best colleges lists. Dordt is home to approximately 1,400 students. To learn more about Dordt College, visit www.dordt.edu.

Note: Though a scholarship has been awarded and the student has been granted acceptance, the student might not have made a final decision about whether he or she will choose to attend Dordt College.

Senator Chuck Grassley says Attorney General Eric Holder can avoid the constitutional stand-off created by the Department of Justice by ending its stonewalling in the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.

Click here for audio.

Here is the text of the address:

This week, I've urged Attorney General Eric Holder to exercise leadership and avoid the constitutional stand-off that the Department of Justice has created with its stonewalling in the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday, the Attorney General sounded willing to negotiate, at last, over releasing documents.  That's fine if the offer isn't hollow.  We've been talking for a year and a half, and a show of good faith would be to produce the documents in question.

The documents concern the government's Fast and Furious program.  In December 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died in a shoot-out with Mexican bandits.  Those bandits were armed with weapons our own government allowed to be purchased and transferred illegally under Operation Fast and Furious.  Whistleblowers came to me with allegations.  They testified nearly a year ago about the use of this practice.  The Department of Justice denied the allegations to me for 10 months before being forced to withdraw its denial in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Yet, today, the family of Brian Terry is still waiting for answers.  It's waiting for justice.  The FBI doesn't have the shooter in custody.  And, the Justice Department is still defying a congressional subpoena for information about how all of this happened.   The chairman of the House oversight committee has scheduled a vote next week on whether to hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the documents.

The House committee action is straightforward and necessary.  Contempt is the only tool Congress has to enforce a subpoena.  The Department of Justice can avoid the action by complying with its legal obligation.  The contempt citation is not about personalities.  It's a procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances.  If Congress is afraid to pursue answers to questions, it's not doing its job.  People deserve transparency from their government.  Transparency leads to the truth about what's going on.  It puts people in a position to defend their rights.  It protects our freedoms.

The facts are important as a matter of accountability.  Related to Fast and Furious, at the Senate hearing this week, Attorney General Holder said that a previous Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, was briefed on a gun walking in the government's Operation Wide Receiver and did absolutely nothing.  Well, there's no evidence of that.  In fact, documents show Attorney General Mukasey was briefed about a different case involving a controlled delivery.  The evidence also shows that more recently, assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer did learn about gun walking in Operation Wide Receiver and did absolutely nothing.  Again, the facts matter, and the nation's top law enforcement officer should take care to get them right.  Since the hearing, I've asked Attorney General Holder to provide any information in support of his statement about Attorney General Mukasey.

Most adults of a certain age believe they've had some colorful jobs. Chances are likely, however, that Bethany Mooradian has them beat.

"I began finding random jobs after receiving my degree in puppetry because I realized that most puppeteers don't make that much money," says Mooradian, author of I Got Scammed So You Don't Have To (www.QueenOfTheRandomJob.com), a how-to book for finding legit work in an economy of scammers. "At one point, I was even Ronald McDonald's bodyguard."

Beginning in 1999, in order to make ends meet while pursuing her artistic passions, she looked for odd jobs. It wasn't long before the search for and execution of odd jobs became a lifestyle. She gave so much advice to her friends on how not to be scammed, that she decided to write a book about it.

Mooradian came up with an acronym to help as a general outline to avoid scams: SCRAM. S = scrutinize the source; C = check for affiliate links and fees; R = research the heck out of every detail; A = ask for more information; M = mouse over images and links to see what website you end on before you click.

"I was scammed in a work-at-home gig from a magazine ad when I was young and naïve," she says. "It was before the internet was widely used, so it wasn't as easy to check it out, and I hadn't yet developed my SCRAM method."

While the odd, random job or source of supplemental income usually does not replace the income of a fulltime job, there are several ways of making money people often overlook, or simply don't know about.

Mooradian emphasizes that anyone can find extra ways to earn income from what they already know how to do, "No one ever goes to college to learn how to 'work at home.' It's simply a matter of taking your skill set and translating that into a home-office or flexible work environment instead of a 9-5 job."  Here are five income opportunities most people are not aware of.

• Being a Virtual Assistant: If you have computer and internet skills, you can work as a VA doing general secretarial work, or processing orders for large-name corporations at home. Many companies are seeing the benefit of "homesourcing" instead of "outsourcing" because overhead is reduced, and customers get to speak to local operators who understand the language and culture.

• Merchandising: Have you ever walked up to someone shelving products in a store to ask for help and they reply, "I'm sorry, I don't work here?" Those are merchandisers. They're hired to set up displays, check prices on items, and shelve products like magazines, food items, and greeting cards. Merchandisers have specific locations to service, but with fairly flexible hours.

• Landlord (rent that extra space!): Many people own property because they want their personal freedom. But for those who've fallen on hard financial times, like millions of Americans, finding a good, trustworthy person to rent your extra room, a storage space, garage, or a parking space is a great option.

• Mystery shopper: Mooradian has created a video and book training course on this topic titled "The Mystery Shopper Training Program," which can be found on her website, as well as through Amazon.com and local bookstores. Mystery shoppers are paid to surreptitiously check out the behavior of employees in retail shops, bars, restaurants, apartment buildings, car dealerships, banks, and even on cruise ships and travel resorts.

• Use your talent: You don't have to have movie-star aspirations to get work as an extra in movies, television shows or industrial/training films. Many times you can call up your local film board to find casting directors in the area to get on their "extra" list. Voiceover work can also be done from the comfort of your home if you have a powerful enough microphone, and you can also be a "standardized patient" acting out diseases to help medical students with their board exams.

"The internet is full of information, but finding useful leads for jobs or making extra money can be like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack, which is why I provide over 300 legitimate companies, ideas, and resources for money-seekers," she says.

About Bethany Mooradian

For 13 years Bethany Mooradian has lived the random-job lifestyle, including everything from being a puppeteer, dog walker and art gallery owner to actor, sexual health resource clinic advisor and parade float fabricator to elderly caregiver, phone book deliverer, mystery shopper, virtual assistant and more. The "Queen of the Random Job" has written books, created training programs, and teaches classes in both Seattle and online to assist others looking for ways to make ends meet.