An Ohio man was arrested at the Waterfront Inn after allegedly using a woman’s credit card.
Sumter County sheriff’s deputies were called Aug. 11 to the Citizens First Bank location at Lake Sumter Landing, where a bank employee and the victim said that several cash withdrawals of $500 had been made on her card between Aug. 2 and 9. The fraudulent transactions at ATMs totaled $6,200. There was also an unauthorized transaction of $82.54 at the Walgreens at 2235 Tall Trees Lane in The Villages. The man who used the credit card was caught on surveillance arriving at and leaving Walgreens in a golf cart.
Video from Walgreens showed a man who looked like 22-year-old Michael Schmidt-Bell of Cincinnati, Ohio, who had been arrested earlier this month at Lake Sumter Landing when he was found to have a golf cart he had been forbidden to drive. He had been arrested on a charge of vehicle theft and had been released Aug. 8 on $2,000 bond.
A deputy had received information that Schmidt-Bell was staying at the Waterfront Inn at Lake Sumter Landing and on Tuesday went there and found him in the parking lot. He was questioned about the unauthorized use of the bank card.
Schmidt-Bell was arrested on charges of grand theft from a person over the age of 65, fraud and illegal use of a credit card. He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on $7,000 bond.
He was arrested last year in Ohio on charges of domestic violence.
In 2018, the Cincinnati Police Department issued an alert for Schmidt-Bell describing him as someone with “violent tendencies.” He was said to be armed with at least three knives. The alert indicated he suffered from bipolar disorder.