Maybe for taking the money originally. Not for trying to pass off a fraudulent check. 
What the hell?
nanny432, on the off chance you’re not a spammer, don’t post any more links to your website. If you do, you’ll be banned. We take a dim view of guests who do nothing but post links to their websites.
Much good advice…thanks dopers.
I was saddened to read that Stranger On A Train , Viridiana , and sandra_nz had experienced similar situations.
I have suggested to him that we should consider some legal representation but his attitude is of the “what’s the point?” variety. I suspect he is afraid of thinking himself responsible for his mother’s punishment, should she be arrested, charged, and convicted. I can understand that, although I sure as hell don’t feel the same way, and I’ve tried to explain to him that she did not break his rules (where it would be up to him to forgive her or not), but society’s rules, where everyone is held accountable for breaking the law. He understands, but at the same time knows she will blame him. And she will…of that there is no doubt.
What a mess. Can I borrow somebody’s board (with nails)? I promise to wash it before returning it.
I’m so sorry this has happened to your son. My step children had similar problems with their mother. You MUST check that no credit cards have been opened in his name. I will be surprised if she hasn’t already done it.
Is he the only child? If not, get busy on everyone else’s behalf!
I can understand him not wanting to press charges. My kids didn’t do it either. One daughter merely hates her mom now. The other (who was victimized the worst) no longer recognizes her mom as a mom, or even a human. She’ll be getting married tomorrow. I’ll be taking the role of her mother. It makes me both happy and deeply sad.
It has been very, very painful for these kids. My heart goes out to you and your son.
Dad has the right idea: Dad’s Suggested Checklist:
Ensure that Mom is prosecuted. Fraud, Grand Larceny and Identity theft come to mind, and Mom should emerge from this experience as a Convicted Felon.
Hire someone from New Jersey to “give mom some financial counseling”, with a baseball bat, to her knees/head. (Kidding!, Jokeee Jokeee Jokeee)
Check kid’s credit history, nip anything bad early.
If you can afford it, replace kid’s loss: while the experience is a good life lesson, he wasn’t at fault for trusting his useless bitch of a mother.
At a minimum, be sure that kid learns how to monitor his credit report, and knows the procedures for blocking credit fraud and identity theft.
If the criminal part falls through, drag her through small claims, forcing her to complete the payment agreement. Regardless of the payment aspect, she might still be prosecutable for the fraud/identity part.
I like the idea of small claims to force her to pay up.
The reference to her possibly stealing from the clients of the social services agency is very disturbing though. Your son will recover financially whether he sees a dime of his money again. The clients she may be stealing from won’t. If your son has any way of leveraging his situation to make sure that never happens again, seems like he has a responsibility to do so.
The whole situation sucks 
Please let us know how this is resolved. I joined the Reserves when I was 17 and had a joint account with my father. I can’t imagine how betrayed I would’ve felt had this happened to me.
I am lucky though, both my parents are great people. At least your son has one of his looking out for him.
Um, just go ahead and burn it when you’re done.
Here are more ideas to prevent this in the future:
http://101-identitytheft.com/index.htm
…and make sure the old guy who she said has Alzheimer’s is also aware of your son’s situation. A good lawyer could probably do more with both of those situations together than either one separately.
How awful! Hope your son gets his money back. If your son didn’t authorize mom to act on his behalf, then he certainly has a cause of action against the bank.
In Dear Abby last week, there was a letter from a woman who had been gifting money several times a year for her godchildren for their college education. The parents later confessed that they had spent the money on a downpayment for their vacation home, etc.
People are messed up.
Conceivably, that might not have been a bad idea, if the parents had bought the vacation home, made payments, built up equity and improved the property so it increased in value faster than just investing it in a fairly conservative college fund. Then when the kids are ~18 and need tuition, the parents could borrow against their equity or just sell it for a big capital gain, after they’ve gotten years of enjoyment out of it.
I’m not saying this did happen, unfamiliar as I am with the details and only hearing a paraphrased version of one side of the story, but the fact that the parents spent the money on real estate (almost always a wise investment) instead of something transitory like a cruise, a flashy car or a coke habit, makes me disinclined to look down on them.
My father and stepmother did something similar to me, though since I was a minor, there wasn’t really anything I could have done, even if I’d known about it at the time.
My grandparents set up a savings account for me when I was born. Every birthday and Christmas, money was deposited into the account by close family members. The plan was that I’d get the money when I turned 18 so that I could either pay part of my college tuition with it or use it to start a life on my own. By the time I was 14, there was about $5,000 in there. When I turned 18, I tried to access the money I thought was in there, but there was only about $500 left. I found out from my grandparents that the summer after my father remarried and he and I moved in with my stepmother, my father and stepmother had taken most of the money out of the account to pay off her credit cards and go on a cruise to the Virgin Islands (of course, I didn’t get to go; I was sent to Southern Baptist church camp). Of course, I remembered them going on a cruise, but I hadn’t known how they’d paid for it.
Doesn’t joining the military emancipate a minor? If so then he could have closed out the joint account and opened up his own.