Convicted embezzler a victim in check case

It was not clear how McKay, who has been incarcerated for more than two years, was owed more than $400 in tax refunds. Joseph Shapiro, a spokesman for the Comptroller's Office, said the agency could not discuss her case, citing tax confidentiality laws.

A search on the agency's unclaimed property database - which includes stocks, bonds, savings accounts, security deposits, contents of safe deposit boxes, insurance proceeds and other valuables that have gone unclaimed for three years - shows that McKay has two unclaimed accounts. Inmates can earn money in prison, though the payments are minimal.

Check fraud is a tactic McKay is very familiar with. She embezzled more than $200,000 from St. Mary's Seminary in Roland Park by rerouting payments, then McKay faked her own death in 2003 to avoid capture, according to police records. While on the lam, she assumed a new identity and bilked an elderly woman out of at least $80,000 by writing herself checks.

Other convictions include stealing from businesses in Annapolis and on the Eastern Shore, and an insurance company accused her in a lawsuit of falsifying her father's death to swipe the title to his home. She escaped a house fire that killed her third husband.

She has been incarcerated since February 2006, when the body of McKay's boyfriend, Tony Fertitta, was found ablaze on a roadside in Millersville. The mother of six was eventually linked to the killing, as were two of her sons.

McKay entered an Alford plea in April to second-degree murder and felony theft, allowing her to maintain her innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction. She faces a maximum sentence of 30 years at her scheduled sentencing tomorrow.

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