Woman spends $1.2 million mistakenly deposited into her bank account, arrested

[ansible]

https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_2feb07a8-98b9-11eb-a676-0f0f5ccc3e47.html

A 911 dispatcher working for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office was arrested Wednesday for allegedly refusing to return more than $1.2 million that Charles Schwab & Co. had mistakenly been deposited into her brokerage account, authorities said. Kelyn Spadoni, 33, of Harvey, was fired after being booked with theft valued over $25,000, bank fraud and illegal transmission of monetary funds, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, a Sheriff's Office spokesperson. Spadoni could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Spadoni is accused of immediately moving the money to another account and using some of the ill-gotten cash to buy a new car and a house, authorities said. Though the money was put into her account, Rivarde said, "It's not her money."

"She has no legal claim to that money," he added. "Even if it was put in there by mistake. It was an accounting error." Spadoni is also being sued in federal court by Charles Schwab & Co. The company has accused Spadoni of dodging their calls, text messages and emailed attempts to recover the money.

According to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, Spadoni opened an account with Schwab in January. About a month later, the company installed an "enhancement" to the software used to transfer assets, court records said. On Feb. 23, Schwab meant to transfer $82.56 into a Fidelity Brokerage Services account also owned by Spadoni. But the company, instead, transferred $1,205,619, court records said. Staffers with the company immediately tried to stop or reclaim the transfer, but couldn't.

[SoCalDavidS]

1. Law Enforcement Breaking Laws

Just another day in America.

[magicarpet]

2. She just figured what a hell of a nice place to invest money.

Put $10.00 into a brokerage account,... the next day the payoff is over $1,000,000,00.

[aeromanKC]

3. She should have pulled an Andy Dufresne

[berniesandersmittens]

20. ✔

[Polybius]

4. Calling it theft can probably be challenged with a good lawyer

If you open my front door and leave your diamond watch in my living room and then leave, is it really theft if I sell it? I don't believe it is. Do I have to give it back? That's more complicated.

[MichMan]

5. The law is pretty clear in cases like this

[d_r]

7. This is the one tenth

That's not possession

[Skittles]

6. let's say a friend accidentally left a diamond watch in your living room

is it theft if you sell it?

[Polybius]

8. I'd say so

The question is, is his case more similar to my comparison of a stranger putting it in my house or yours?

[Skittles]

11. no, because she is a client

[pbmus]

9. How good a friend..?

[Canoe52]

23. Asking for a friend?

[USALiberal]

10. Lol, not at all! Nice try! Nt

[qazplm135]

14. If you know I left it by accident

and didn't intend for you to keep it?

Yes, it is.

Remind me never to loan you anything. lol

She knew it was a mistake, and that it wasn't hers...that's why she immediately moved it to another account, so that when they came to take it back, it was gone.

[Polybius]

15. Lol in your case I completely agree

If you are over my house for a party and leave something, of course it's still yours. I was likening it to a total stranger leaving something in my living room (perhaps he thought it was a different house).

A better example is Door Dash leaving food with the wrong house. Is it theft if I eat it? Maybe, I was just asking what if they get a good lawyer.

[qazplm135]

18. as someone as said

case law on this is pretty air tight. If you get money you weren't expecting in your bank, do not spend it, or be prepared to pay it all back if you do, or you're in trubs.

[JCMach1]

24. Or be prepared to skip town to a country without US extradition

[Generic Brad]

19. This scenario is well established as theft

There is plenty of legal precedence. No lawyer is good enough to get her out of this one.

[Kaleva]

26. You don't actually own the account or the money in it.

An account is a mechanism that you use to lend money to the financial institution where you have the account at.

[unblock]

29. To borrow a bit from "office space":

So you have a lot of money now?
Right

And it isn't yours?
Well it became mine

How is this not stealing?
Um.. it's complicated. I'm not explaining it very well....

[Cha]

13. Well, the best thing, imo, would

have been to let them know.

Who knows what karma & rewards would come from doing the right thing.

Now it's just freaking jail time.. not worth the instant gratification.. not even a little bit.

[3Hotdogs]

16. Fuck Charlie..... what ever happened to the old legal principal I learned in grade school,

went somethin' like, "Finders, keepers and something' about loosers....













Yes Agnes, its sarcasm.

[madaboutharry]

17. What a dope.

it is kind of scary that someone so stupid and dishonest had a job where people’s lives could be at risk.

[GETPLANING]

21. That happened to me once.

Not quite a million, but my banker told me if it was not rectified in a year, it was mine. A week later, they found their money and it was gone. But I was paid some interest on it.

[Nexus2]

31. Is that an overall policy or specific for the bank you are or were using?

I recall a LOOONG time ago the Postal Service was making it known that if something was mistakenly delivered to you, consider it yours. I didn't know if banks had a similar global policy (or the Postal Service policy is still the same).

[Jon King]

22. I had $100,000,000 a few months ago!

Logged into my Vanguard account a few months ago and it read Balance $100,000,000.37. I took some screen shots of it just for laughs.

About 45 minutes later is changed to Balance $0.00. Then about 45 minutes after that it went back to the correct balance.

We were sooooo rich for a little while.

[stopdiggin]

25. just out of curiosity -- didn't that make you

just the tiniest bit nervous? You still have an account with these people?
I think I'd be running ....

----- -----

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

27. Of course I would immediately give it back right after I got a print

out of my account just so I can show friends and family that at one time I had more than a million in my account.

[Crunchy Frog]

28. I need to figure out which country to flee to, in case that ever happens to me.

[Submariner]

30. A friend had a bank mistakenly deposit over a million

to her savings account. When she returned the money to the bank, by law, they had to leave the $4000 in interest the deposit earned over the 2-3 days it sat in her account. Pretty good deal.

[hunter]

32. I've gotten extra money out of ATM machines twice.

The first time it was three extra twenties. The bank said other customers had got extra money but I was the only one to return it.

The second time, not my usual bank, I got an extra $100. That bank told me to keep it. It was a "Bank Error in Your Favor," like Monopoly. I doubt they would have done the same with $1.2 million.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. On the other hand, when a company designs a game of chance badly, they have to pay out

in a recent decision in England:

A Betfred punter denied a £1.7m jackpot over an alleged software glitch has won a legal battle to claim the winnings.

Andy Green, from Lincolnshire, scooped the prize in January 2018 while playing a blackjack game on his phone.
...
Betfred had argued that the software glitch, which stopped the game from resetting properly while Mr Green was playing, was covered under the terms and conditions of the game.

However, Mrs Justice Foster ruled that the wording of the clauses relied upon was "inadequate", and "not transparent or fair and Betfred were not entitled to rely upon them".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-56663830