Hilltown Township Police. Photo by James Short.
The defendant activated an iPhone and obtained a debit card in Massachusetts using the victim's personal information
A Florida man has been charged with 11 felonies and two misdemeanors related to an incident in February 2024 in Massachusetts, where he is accused of using a fraudulent Pennsylvania license in a Hilltown Township woman’s name to obtain an iPhone on her account, and then using the phone to obtain a debit card under the victim’s account, wherein $16,000 was withdrawn.
Michael Charles Crouse, 46, of the 9400 block of Carlton Road, Port St. Lucie, was charged via warrant June 27 by Hilltown Township Police with two felony counts each of theft by deception and identity theft, and a felony charge each of forgery, criminal use of a communication device, use of an access device issued to another person without authorization, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, unlawful use of a computer to disrupt functioning of a device, and computer trespassing by transferring funds, according to court documents.
Crouse is also charged with misdemeanor counts of tampering with records, and secure execution of documents by deception, per court records.
On Jan. 17, 2024, at 1:37 a.m., police received a call from a township woman with a Sellersville mailing address about a fraud alert on her TD Bank account, per the affidavit.
Police said Crouse, on Jan. 16, 2024, at 5 p.m., entered the TD Bank branch at 295 Park Avenue in Worcester, Mass., presented a fake Pennsylvania driver’s license in the name of the victim’s husband, and then obtained a debit card in the man’s name.
Crouse, police allege, then used the debit card to withdraw $16,000 from the victim’s two checking accounts.
Prior to the fraud alert, the victim received a text message from an AT&T number belonging to her husband, per the affidavit. The person who messaged the victim asked for access to a third TD Bank account, police said.
The victim called AT&T and learned that a man entered a store in Worcester, Mass. and presented a driver’s license in the name of the victim’s husband, police said. A new phone was then activated under the victim’s AT&T account, with the victim’s husband’s number assigned to the newly activated phone, per the complaint.
Police issued a search warrant on TD Bank, in which surveillance footage from the Massachusetts branch during the withdraw of funds, police said. Still images of Crouse were disseminated via a law enforcement email listserv, and three law enforcement agencies identified Crouse via a Florida arrest photograph, police said: A Tredyffrin Township detective, a Montgomery County detectives analyst, and an analyst with the Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network.
