Wayne James Nelson, a manager in the office of the Arizona State Treasurer, was found guilty of trying to defraud the state of nearly \(\$ 2\) million. Nelson's scheme involved issuing checks to bogus vendors. The amounts of the 23 checks issued are shown below:

Required 

Refer to the chart shown below that reports the occurrences of various digits in a number. Compare the first digit of the fraudulent checks to the table of Benford's Law. How do the two compare? Are there any other unusual patterns you detect in the check amounts?

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The table lists the checks that a manager in the office of the Arizona State Treasurer wrote to divert funds for his own use. The vendors to whom the checks were issued were fictitious. Date of Check Amount October 9, 1992 $ 1,927.48 27,902.31 October 14, 1992 86,241.90 72,117.46 81,321.75 97,473.96 October 19, 1992 93,249.11 89,658.17 87,776.89 92,105.83 79,949.16 87,602.93 96,879.27 91,806.47 84,991.67 90,831.83 93,766.67 88,338.72 94,639.49 83,709.28 96,412.21 88,432.86 71,552.16 TOTAL $1,878,687.58