A father who failed to notify authorities after he had $110,000 deposited into his bank account by accident has been charged with theft and could face time in jail, it has been reported.
Stephen McDow, from Laguna Beach, had the huge amount of money given to him by mistake by the IRS after a 67-year-old woman made an error when passing over her account details.
After failing to inform authorities about the error and spending more than half of the amount to get himself out of debt, McDow now faces jail time after being arrested over the alleged felony.
McDow, who faces four years in prison if convicted and is being held on $110,000 bail, is charged with grand theft by misappropriation of lost property for simply keeping quiet about the sudden increase in his finances in September.
The error occurred after the elderly woman from Los Angeles failed to inform the IRS that in 2004 she had closed a bank account she had registered with them.
The account number was subsequently assigned to McDow, who then received the funds intended for the woman, according to local news station KCAL.
McDow received the money on September 10 last year and reportedly started spending the money almost immediately to pay off debts.
By September 11 he had started taking out funds, which would eventually come to $65,000, to buy a car and to pay off his student loan and a mortgage to prevent foreclosure on his home.
When the woman was told that McDow had received her money she called his and demanded her money back.
Having already spent so much of the $110,000, McDow offered to pay back the balance in monthly instalments but the woman allegedly declined the offer.
McDow, a husband and father of two, was subsequently arrested and is now on bail for the alleged crime.
Tax lawyer Jerry Unis, who is not trying the case, said: ‘He said: “Look, I screwed up. I spent it on my student loan and I spent it on my home mortgage.”
‘It doesn’t sound like this man exercised criminal intent anywhere along the way.’
