READ ALL THE FACTS on the $20,000 check Victor Sims put in his own account

A $20,000 check dated February 26, 2018 was deposited into Victor Sims's MidFlorida Credit Union account on March 6. It was drawn on a construction company whose owner told the Polk County Sheriff's Office he never wrote it, did not know Sims, and thought the check had been stolen from his briefcase or lost. MidFlorida's loss prevention manager pulled the drive-through photographs from the Spirit Lake Road branch. Sims was identified from the member photo on file. When Detective Brett Kier met him at the Auburndale Flea Market on April 24, Sims admitted he signed the back of the check and tried to deposit it. His explanation: it came in the mail, and he assumed it was from the builders of the house he had just bought. Asked whether it made sense to receive $20,000 after putting $9,000 down on a $158,000 home, Sims agreed it seemed suspicious. The next day he emailed the detective with a new story: it was an IRS refund. The bank statements he supplied showed the builder check was $800 in January and the IRS refund was $3,031 on February 9, and nothing large followed the $20,000 attempt. Detective Kier's supplement says Sims 'endeavored to deprive the victim of $20,000.00 dollars through passing an altered check without permission,' that the reason he gave was 'later found to be a lie,' and that Sims produced nothing showing he was expecting any check at all. In October 2026, with the report public, Sims posted a video with another explanation: it was a solar panel rebate, and he was the victim of a scam because nobody taught him financial literacy. The words solar and rebate appear nowhere in the 2018 report. He was 22 that March. He already had a master's in business from Florida International University and was in graduate school at Florida State's law school. A man with an MBA and a seat in a law school wants Polk County parents to believe he could not tell a construction company's $20,000 check from a solar rebate.