Woman Arrested After Refusing To Return $1,200,000 Put In Her Bank By Accident

A woman from Louisiana found herself in hot water after she decided not to return $1.2 million that mistakenly ended up in her bank account.

Honestly, it's easy to see how tough it would be to let go of that much money once it's right there in your grasp.

Still, doing the right thing by returning it is what's expected.

However, Kelyn Spadoni, who was a 911 dispatcher in Louisiana, didn't seem persuaded to return the funds after they were accidentally transferred into her brokerage account in 2021.

The money was accidentally wired to Spadoni's account. Getty Stock Photo

The money came from Charles Schwab, a financial services company.

They had sent it to an account Spadoni opened in January of that year following an 'enhancement' to their software that handles asset transfers.

Charles Schwab meant to deposit just $82.56 into Spadoni's account, but a lawsuit filed by the company stated that instead, a whopping $1,205,619 was sent over by mistake.

Clearly, that’s a sum that’s hard to miss, so the company’s staff tried to stop the transfer and reclaim the funds.

They sent a request to the institution managing the account to reclaim the money, only to receive a notification saying: "CASH NOT AVAILABLE".

Spadoni reportedly moved the funds to a different account quickly and used part of the money to purchase a house and a new car, which cost between $48,000 and $70,000.

Captain Jason Rivarde from the Sheriff's office explained: "She secreted it, and they were not able to access it."

The company were unable to retract the money. Getty Stock Photo

After trying to contact Spadoni for weeks without success, Charles Schwab finally turned to the Sheriff's office for help.

A criminal investigation was initiated, and it was discovered how Spadoni had spent some of the money.

She was arrested and faced charges including theft of over $25,000, bank fraud, and illegal transmission of monetary funds.

The Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office later dropped the charges against Spadoni, but her troubles didn't end there.

She was fired from her job as a dispatcher and had to complete an 'adult diversion' program.

The lawsuit by Charles Schwab stated that Spadoni "made it clear she [did] not intend to return the mistakenly transferred funds to Schwab".

However, Rivarde told Nola.com that detectives and lawyers from Schwab were eventually able to recover about 75 percent of the funds.

The charges against Spadoni were ultimately dropped. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office

Rivarde compared the situation to a common error, saying:

"If someone accidentally puts an extra zero on a utility payment, they would want that money returned or credited to them. This is no different."

In 2022, spokesperson Pete Greenley told The Sun: "We are grateful to the authorities who were able to recover most of the assets that the defendant unlawfully acquired."