A 21-year-old valet attendant in Florida was arrested after allegedly stealing a woman’s checkbook from her car and cashing nearly $1,300 in fraudulent checks while she was visiting Disney World.
According to an Orange County Jail booking report, Mason Henrichsen was charged with two third-degree felonies, including grand theft by fraud and forgery of a check.
Local news station WKMG reported that a woman visiting from Ohio told authorities she valet parked her car on Saturday, November 29, at Kidani Village in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.
On Wednesday, December 3, she reportedly received notifications from her bank for four withdrawals totaling approximately $1,300 that she did not authorize.
According to People, the woman received screenshots of multiple checks, on which she could see that they were written out to Henrichsen. She reportedly told authorities that her checkbook was missing from her vehicle, but there were no signs of forced entry.
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Authorities were allegedly able to match Henrichsen’s signature to the ones found on the checks and, when they contacted the valet manager at the Kidani Village property, confirmed Henrichsen was employed there.
When he arrived for work that evening, he was placed under arrest. “Mason advised that he found a check on the parking lot ground and decided to write it out to himself,” officer Richard Schorr wrote in an arrest affidavit, according to People.
Per WKMG, a spokesperson for Disney confirmed that Henrichsen is employed by a third-party company and not Disney itself.
The local news outlet reported that the sheriff’s office said the case will be forwarded to the Economic Crimes Unit for further review.