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A Des Moines woman has been sentenced to five years in prison on forgery charges, after she admitted to passing bad checks at stores in Knoxville and Pella.

29-year-old Nikola Mae Fuller appeared in court on Thursday before Judge Martha Mertz; she was arrested in January on charges of writing checks on closed accounts at the Casey’s on Main Street in Knoxville. She was also charged by Pella police with writing fraudulent checks at the local Hy-Vee and Casey’s.

At her sentencing, Fuller said she had relapsed into substance abuse after going through recovery, and wrote the fraudulent checks to support her drug habit.

Fuller pleaded guilty to four counts of forgery; she received five years for each charge, which will be served concurrently.