Police on April 30 arrested a 65-year-old New Jersey woman by warrant after she stole a $112,067 U.S. Treasury check from a local resident and deposited it into a Nashville bank. The suspect opened the account using fraudulent documents that identified her, falsely, as a New Canaan resident—a U.S. passport card, address, Social Security number and driver’s license number, according to the affidavit of New Canaan Police Officer Kelly Coughlin that forms the major part of an arrest warrant application signed April 15 by state Superior Court Judge John Blawie and obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request.
The check had been deposited into an account at Fifth Third Bank in Nashville in November, and local police learned of the fraud in January, when the victim came to NCPD headquarters to report the associated identity theft. The IRS had contacted the victim saying she would receive the large refund, but a check never arrived and the victim “initially thought it was a mistake and did not realize she was actually owed this money,” Coughlin said in the police affidavit. “She did not know where the check may have been intercepted along the chain of being mailed to her residence,” Coughlin said in the affidavit. The victim “contacted the IRS via telephone to advise them she never received the check and that someone had intercepted it,” the arrest warrant application said.
