A Woodland man is accused of charging tens of thousands of dollars on a customer’s credit card in the month after completing a landscaping job at her home.
Shane D. Carson, 50, appeared Wednesday in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of first-degree theft. Judge Daniel Stahnke set bail at $5,000.
Court records say the theft happened between October and November 2017. A Clark County sheriff’s deputy completed a declaration of probable cause Oct. 23, and a court summons was issued for Carson to appear Nov. 19. He failed to show up, however, and an arrest warrant was authorized by a judge.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Carson entered into a contract with Timi Russin under the business name Carson Landscape.
Russin paid Carson with a credit card when the work was done; the transaction was processed through a third-party vendor. The affidavit does not include how much Russin was charged. However, in a victim impact statement Russin wrote that Carson was a challenge from the start: “unreliable, always leaving, appeared to be high most of the time,” the statement says.
About a month after the work had been finished, Russin noted multiple charges from Carson Landscape on her credit card totaling $24,000, according to the affidavit. She disputed the charges to her bank and filed a police report.
An investigator later obtained records from the third-party vendor and discovered that Carson Landscape made six unauthorized charges to Russin’s card, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, according to the affidavit. Additionally, the records showed Carson tried to use the credit card about 40 times.
“Some of these attempted charges were in excess of $40,000,” the affidavit says.
Carson is scheduled to be arraigned on the theft charge Feb. 12.
