An Oklahoma woman was charged with felony embezzlement for failing to return a VHS tape of Sabrina the Teenage Witch more than 20 years ago, KOKH-TV reports. Caron McBride rented the tape in 1999 from a store in Norman that’s now closed and was charged in 2000 for not bringing it back. However, she only became aware of the charges recently when she tried to change her last name after getting married and was informed by the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office of her criminal record.
Remember these? Yeah, that’s a VHS tape.
TONIGHT- an Oklahoma woman is trying to clear her record after learning she was charged w/ felony embezzlement for never returning ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ on VHS tape from a ‘Movie Place’ 21 YEARS AGO. Hear from her on @OKCFOX at 9. pic.twitter.com/CE4aModOhI— Erika Stanish (@Erika_Stanish) April 22, 2021
- McBride doesn’t even remember renting the tape. Perhaps understandably, McBride has no recollection of renting the VHS in question more than 20 years ago. “She told me it was over the VHS tape and I had to make her repeat it because I thought, this is insane. This girl is kidding me, right? She wasn’t kidding,” she recalled of the conversation with the District Attorney’s Office.
- She believes an old roommate may have rented it. According to McBride, her former roommate had young children and she thinks he may have rented the tape under her name and just never brought it back. “I had lived with a young man, this was over 20 years ago. He had two kids, daughters that were 8, 10, or 11 years old, and I’m thinking he went and got it and didn’t take it back or something. I have never watched that show in my entire life, just not my cup of tea. Meanwhile, I’m a wanted felon for a VHS tape,” she said.
- The charges have followed her around in her professional life. According to McBride, she’s been let go of several jobs in her life without explanation, and finding out about the felony charges against her has put things into perspective. “This is why… because when they ran my criminal background check, all they’re seeing is those two words: felony embezzlement,” she told the new station.
- Thankfully, the District Attorney’s Office has dropped the charges. As you can probably imagine, they have better things to do than to prosecute cases like this, and the charges against McBride have been dropped. However, she’ll need to get her record expunged to keep the charges from showing up.
