The Orange County Register reports that a Laguna Beach man who received someone else’s $110,000 federal tax refund in error spent the money on foreclosure debt and student and car loans,:
Santa Ana police arrested Stephen Reginald McDow, 34, on Tuesday, and prosecutors have charged him with one felony count of theft of lost property with a sentencing enhancement for taking property over $65,000.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of four years in state prison. McDow is being held on $110,000 bail. Prosecutors seek to have the bail set at the same amount as the theft alleged in fraud cases.
The victim, identified by prosecutors as Michelle D., 67, of Los Angeles, electronically filed her 2009 tax return in August 2010, expecting a $110,000 refund to be directly deposited into her bank account, prosecutors said.
She inadvertently provided the number of a Citibank account that had been closed in 2004, but which was later reassigned to McDow, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Maybe Mr. McDow doesn’t think he did anything wrong. After all, it was the IRS’s mistake. But if you know the money isn’t yours, you have a duty to return it. It’s no different than finding a bag of money on the street.
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