{"id":47340,"date":"2026-04-11T05:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T05:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47340"},"modified":"2026-04-11T05:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T05:23:18","slug":"arkansas-woman-rene-coleman-mistakenly-paid-20k-by-employer-refused-to-return-money-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47340","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas woman Rene Coleman mistakenly paid $20K by employer refused to return money: police"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>An Arkansas woman is accused of holding onto nearly $20,000 that her employer accidentally paid her \u2014 and refusing to give it back.<\/p>\n<p>Rene Nichole Coleman, 50, is facing a felony theft charge after she was mistakenly paid $1,650 an hour for a 12-hour shift at her now-former job with Superior Senior Care, an in-home care company in Jonesboro, a city north of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/tag\/memphis\/\">Memphis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Coleman normally earned $16.50 an hour before a payroll glitch suddenly sent her pay skyrocketing.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Rene Nichole Coleman, 50, faces a felony theft charge after police say she kept $19,388 that her employer accidentally paid her. <span class=\"credit\">Craighead County Sheriff&#8217;s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On May 10, 2025, she received an <span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">additional $19,388 into her bank account, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/crime\/2026\/04\/10\/woman-mistakenly-paid-20k-refused-paying-back-employer\/89556667007\/\" target=\"_blank\">USA Today in August 2025<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Her employer later caught the mistake and demanded the money back, but Coleman allegedly refused to return the cash.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Superior Senior Care later filed a theft report with Jonesboro police over the paycheck.<\/p>\n<p>Coleman was formally charged by Craighead County District Judge David Boling on April 6 with theft involving more than $5,000 but less than $25,000, a Class C felony in Arkansas.<\/p>\n<p>The company also backed up its claim with financial records and emails.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Superior Senior Care in Jonesboro, where Coleman normally earned $16.50 an hour before the payroll glitch. <span class=\"credit\">Superior Senior Care\/Facebook<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to police, Coleman told her employer she had already spent the money fixing her husband\u2019s semi-truck.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators say she did not provide further details about where the money went.<\/p>\n<p>A detective later contacted Coleman by phone, and she agreed to come in and talk about the situation.<\/p>\n<p>She never showed up, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Jonesboro police say Coleman admitted she \u201cdidn\u2019t pay attention and spent money\u201d to fix her husband\u2019s semi-truck.  <span class=\"credit\">Christopher Sadowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Police then issued a warrant for her arrest on a felony theft charge tied to the missing money.<\/p>\n<p>Coleman was not immediately taken into custody after the warrant was issued. She was finally arrested on April 6, but on a separate outstanding warrant, police told TV station <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wwnytv.com\/2026\/04\/09\/woman-mistakenly-paid-1650-an-hour-refused-return-money-employer-police-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">KAIT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After her arrest, Coleman agreed to speak with officers without a lawyer present.<\/p>\n<p>Police say she admitted she \u201cdidn\u2019t pay attention and spent money.\u201d She also claimed she later tried to offer to repay her former employer.<\/p>\n<p>Coleman\u2019s bond has been set at $15,000. She is scheduled to appear in court on May 18.<\/p>\n<p>As of April 10, state records did not show her in custody.<\/p>\n<p>The case will now play out in court.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/11\/us-news\/arkansas-woman-rene-coleman-mistakenly-paid-20k-by-employer-refused-to-return-money-police\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Arkansas woman is accused of holding onto nearly $20,000 that her employer accidentally paid her \u2014 and refusing to give it back. Rene Nichole Coleman,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}