City court looking for restitution owners

Havre City Court is looking to pay $885 in restitution to five victims who have not received their money.

Court staff, with the help of people in the community, as well various avenues including social media and internet searches, has already found 15 other people to whom restitution was owed and is hoping people can help find the others.

The names of the remaining  five victims of past crimes who are owed restitution are Eunice The Boy, Sean Terrence Moore, Fred Frederick, Abigail Bohn and Shane Clary.

If those five people are not found by the end of September 2017, the court must report the amount of unclaimed money to the Montana Department of Revenue and then send a check for the amount owed. Once the money is sent to the state, the Department of Revenue must continue to try and find the rightful owner. If the Department of Revenue doesn't succeed in returning the money to the rightful owner within one year from when it had become distributable, it becomes the property of the state.

Havre City Judge Virginia Seigel said there are many reasons why it is sometime difficult to find the owner of restitution pay. For starters, restitution is not always paid right away, so the victims may have moved. Other times the check may have gotten lost in the mail or mailed to the wrong address entirely.

Siegel credits the internet for the many times it has helped she and her staff find victims who are owed money.

"The highest restitution check was owed to a victim in Wisconsin for a crime committed via the internet in Havre, Montana," she said.

The case was adjudicated in 2014 and the Court received a check in September of 2014.  The check was sent to the victim to the last known address in Wisconsin. The victim never got the check, she said.

"Fortunately, the victim has a very unusual last name and by using internet research, the court found a similar name in a city that was close to the last known address," she said. "I took a chance and left a message at the phone number found and the victim contacted the court,  grateful to hear that the message I had left with his grandparents in Wisconsin was valid."

The victim, Seigel said, assumed the restitution was never paid.

"After updating his address, the court reissued a check for the $500 he had lost as a victim of a crime committed in 2014," she said.

Seigel said people who know how to contact the people to whom restitution is owed can call Havre City Court at 406-265-8575.