Arkansas woman jailed after refusing to return nearly $20K she was mistakenly paid to her employer: police

An Arkansas woman is accused of holding onto nearly $20,000 that her employer accidentally paid her — and refusing to give it back.

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 Memphis.

Coleman normally earned $16.50 an hour before a payroll glitch suddenly sent her pay skyrocketing.

Rene Nichole Coleman, 50, faces a felony theft charge after police say she kept $19,388 that her employer accidentally paid her.

On May 10, 2025, she received an additional $19,388 into her bank account, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by USA Today in August 2025.

Her employer later caught the mistake and demanded the money back, but Coleman allegedly refused to return the cash.

According to police, Coleman told her employer she had already spent the money fixing her husband’s semi-truck.

Investigators say she did not provide further details about where the money went.

A detective later contacted Coleman by phone, and she agreed to come in and talk about the situation.

Again you made a known business deal. If you knew it was crappy lumber, why did you buy it at that price?

When you buy lumber in bulk and have it delivered to the job site 60 miles away, you expect good quality lumber like they advertise. Instead, what you will sometimes get is all the splits, knots, and bowed boards that people who buy at the store cull out. Not only that, I've had the Lowes people hide this trash lumber in the middle of the bundles so they don't get found for days. So, I just have to suck it up, and hope for karma when I get to stick it to Lowes when they mistakenly sell me a mower for less than half price. No theft involved at all.

In my book it is theft when you don’t keep your agreement.

How do you know she didn't keep her agreement? She worked for a weekly paycheck that could go either way depending upon what her employer chose to give her, depending upon what mood he was in. When was the last time you got honestly paid for every single minute you put in on the job?

Do you think the business owners treated this lowly minimum wage employee with the same respect as they want to be shown? Or, do you think there's a better chance that she was one of the low-end employees that turned the lights on and off everyday and cleaned up crap after them on a daily basis, and then one day saw the chance to get back some of what she really deserved? Once again, it's called "karma."

My eighth-grade math teacher (public school) stated that if you are accidentally given too much change at the cash register —and you see it and don’t correct the error by returning the overage— then you are stealing.

Then the bozo who hired the employee who over-changed me owes me money for giving his employee on-the-job training. I'm not stealing. I charge for math tutoring.

I think this is a civil matter. If she doesn’t return the money, fire her and pursue a civil lawsuit to recover the money. Not sure how you prove felony theft when there’s a paper trail of the “victim” giving the “perpetrator” the money.

Sure, it’s unethical to keep it, but I don’t see a crime by simply refusing to return it.

>>hide this trash lumber in the middle of the bundles

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Yep; Lowes, Home Depot and a cedar supplier.

Always have to buy 20% over and return the trash.

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