Police: Man stole $200K from family
A 32-year-old Butler man has been charged with theft, identity theft, computer trespass, forgery and other charges for allegedly stealing about $200,000 from his grandparents' retirement and bank accounts.
State police Friday charged Erik Stephen Cupps, 32, of Butler for allegedly taking the money from his grandparents, William and Charlene Stevenson, who are 81 and 80 years old, respectively.
He was arrested and arraigned Friday and is being held in the Butler County Prison in lieu of $50,000 bond.
After the Stevensons reported a large amount of money missing from their retirement account and suspicious activity on their bank account, police said they found large amounts of automated payments to their credit cards and the credit card statements showed multiple transactions to the PayPal accounts of Cupps, another person and the Stevensons. The Stevensons don't have a PayPal account.
The PayPal accounts had identifying information belonging to Cupps and the Stevensons' financial information, police said.
Search warrants executed on accounts belonging to Cupps and another person revealed multiple transactions for online gambling, police said.
Multiple online transfers from the Stevensons' accounts to Cupps' accounts and forged checks addressed to Cupps also were found, police said. One check was deposited into an account created in William Stevenson's name without his knowledge, police said.
After the Stevensons stopped receiving phone calls on their landline, it was found that their calls were being forwarded to the phone at Cupps' home, police said.
A search warrant was executed Friday at Cupps' home, and police found items related to the Stevensons and a cellphone with the phone number associated with the fraudulent accounts.
During a Friday interview with police, Cupps said he tampered with the accounts for financial gain to support his family, police said.
Cupps has been charged with felony counts of unlawful use of a computer, computer trespass, identity theft, theft by deception, forgery, access device and theft by unlawful taking and a misdemeanor count of tampering with records or identification.
