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Mitchell Jeane -
Jerrica Jeane -
Matthews
For the past two years, Lumberton Police Department (LPD) Sgt. Chad Wilson and Special Agent Matt Cryer of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Criminal Investigation Division (CID) have been investigating the case of a woman and couple who concocted a scheme involving selling a baby and health care fraud.
Last week, the long hours of law enforcement work paid off.
Harley Dee Matthews, 28, remained in the Hardin County Jail as of press time on charges of sale or purchasing a child and health care fraud, between $30,000 to $150,000. She was arrested Feb. 27 and her preset bond was $20,000.
Feb. 29, Mitchell Leigh Jeane and Jerrica Elee Jeane, both 34, were also arrested after they drove from Lorian, Ohio, to voluntarily surrender themselves to LPD. Mitchell Jeane and Jerrica Jeane were each charged with purchasing a child ($10,00 bond). Jerrica Jeane was also charged with health care fraud ($20,000 bond). The couple bonded out last week and there are no stipulations to their bond.
All three were indicted by a Hardin County grand jury over the past several months.
Wilson said LPD became involved in the case in February 2022, three days after a baby was born to Matthews, then age 26.
In 2021, according to Wilson, Matthews was living with Mitchell and Jerrica Jeane in their home in the Summerfield Mobile Home Court on Wheeler Road in Lumberton, when she told the couple she was pregnant.
“When Matthews turns up pregnant, she couldn’t afford to have the baby while living with them,” the officer noted. “The three, together, concoct this plan that Matthews will assume Jerrica’s identity, and that Mitchell and Jerrica will buy the baby from Matthews for $5,000.”
Wilson said the initial agreement between Matthews and the Jeanes was that the couple would give the expecting mother a $2,500 down payment and the second $2,500 installment would be given when the baby was born.
“The intention of her assuming Jerrica’s identity (was) from the very first doctor’s visit until the day they were caught,” Wilson explained. “That was a two-fold purpose — so she could have insurance and she was going to give birth under the name of Jerrica Jeane” and have Jeane as the “legal mother” on the birth certificate.
Wilson said the couple’s scheme was discovered while Matthews was giving birth at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont.
“That plan actually worked until she delivered on Feb. 25, 2022,” he said. “Three days after it is born, the baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit with one of the longtime nurses,” as well as Mitchell Jeane and Matthews, the birth mother, who was pretending to be his wife. “Then, Jerrica Jeane shows up to the hospital, tells the hospital staff she is Harley Matthews, the aunt to the baby, and that’s when one of the nurses recognized the real Jerrica Jeane because she had given birth at the hospital about two years ago.”
Wilson said the nurse started searching and comparing photos of Matthews and Jerrica Jeane from social media posts. She discovered the truth and forwarded the information to her supervisors, who then sent it to LPD. Child Protective Services took custody baby at the hospital, he added.
Wilson said Mitchell Jeane was out on bond for a child sex crime and was wearing an ankle monitor at the hospital as part of the bond condition. In February 2022, he had been indicted by a Hardin County grand jury and arrested for aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony, and indecency with a child-sexual contact, a second-degree felony, on a child under age 6. His bond was set at $350,000 and he later bonded out.
According to court records, Mitchell Jeane was set to go to trial in April 2022 and August 2023 in the 356th Judicial District Court under Judge Steve Thomas but has not stood trial.
“That day (Feb. 28, 2022), he had another active arrest warrant for aggravated sexual assault of a child from Jefferson County. Beaumont PD actually arrested him for that warrant and he was booked into the Jefferson County Correctional Facility,” Wilson said.
On the road again
Mitchell Jeane wasn’t in the custody of Jefferson County long, either, Wilson said, as, sometime after the baby was born, the Jeanes and Matthews left with nine other children – all under the age of 13 – and moved to Lorain, Ohio, east of Cleveland on Lake Erie, before a falling out led Matthews to venture out on her own.
“Some belong to them and some I don’t know where they come from,” Wilson said of the children, unsure of their current status, either. “At the time I did the initial investigation in February 2022, we brought all those kids here and the Garth House from Beaumont brought their equipment and set up shop for those kids in the Senior Citizens Building.”
All nine were released back to Jerrica Jeane; Mitchell Jeane was in jail that day.
Wilson said he presented his portion of the case to a Hardin County grand jury in November 2023. Special Agent Matt Cryer of the DPS Criminal Investigation Division investigated and presented the health care fraud case. Wilson said that, after the grand jury indictments came out, he found all three suspects in Ohio.
Mitchell Jeane was working for a tugboat company and traveled to and from Ohio with Jerrica on a regular basis. Despite media reports that Matthews was from Orange, she was likewise residing in Lorain, Ohio, at the time of her indictment and arrest, and working part-time at a local pizza place.
“She was willing to go turn herself in there and she was very cooperative,” Wilson said, adding that the agreed to take a police-paid bus ticket to get home to face the charges. Matthews traveled 35 hours on a Greyhound bus from Ohio to Rose City in Orange County. “We arrested her at the bus stop in Orange County and she was taken to the Orange County Jail.”
Wilson noted that all three suspects have been cooperative.
“Once we caught them, they spilled their guts,” he said.