EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - The voicemail message begins harmlessly and sounds legitimate.

“Good morning, this is Deputy Brian Turner calling from the Madison County Sheriff Civil Services Division.”

But Chief Judge Christopher Threlkeld of Illinois’ third Judicial Circuit Court in Edwardsville says it quickly takes a fraudulent turn.

“It should set off alarm bells,” Threlkeld said.

The voicemail continued, saying, “Our facility has been requested to contact you after receiving proper documentation indicating that you failed to appear Friday, Aug. 8 for your assigned term of service federal grand jury.”

“It was allegedly a Madison County Sheriff’s Deputy that was calling, so there was an aspect of law enforcement to this in that they needed to call back in order to make things right with the jury commission,” Threlkeld said.

Threlkeld says citizens who returned the call were told to pay up.

“What we’ve learned is that if you got far enough down the line in talking to the people with the scam, they were going to ask for money in order to allegedly make things correct with the jury commission,” Threlkeld said.

Threlkeld tells Contact 2 the sheriff’s deputy the scammer posed as is not someone affiliated with the sheriff’s department or the court. If someone is summoned to jury duty, they’ll receive an official summons from the jury commission in the mail.

The letter tells the prospective juror the date, time and location they're supposed to report to.

“It gives them a link to our website where they answer a questionnaire. It gives them a link to where they can contact the jury commission if they are unable to make it for jury duty and they want to request an excuse,” Threlkeld said.

But what happens when you don’t answer the questionnaire within two weeks?

“We send out a second notice and if you don’t respond to the second notice, then we will send you a notice to appear in court for a compliance docket so we can talk to you about why you didn’t show up to jury duty,” Threlkeld said.

Even then, Threlkeld says sheriff’s deputies won’t call you about your absence. When it comes to catching the scammer, the search continues.

“We did attempt to contact the phone number that was left on the voicemails, and we did not get any response when we attempted to do that. Maybe they shut that down; maybe they’re using different numbers now,” Threlkeld said.

Threlkeld told Contact 2 he’s unaware of anyone losing money to this scam and hopes sharing this scam warning with the public will prevent any future losses.