DETROIT -- A Detroit man was charged with 12 felony counts on suspicion of stealing about $200,000 from the accounts of a deceased man, who had set aside $150,000 of that money for the American Cancer Society.

Attorney General Mike Cox announced the charges Wednesday against Dion T. Mann, 27.

"Stealing a deceased person's savings is an appalling act," said Cox. "It's my office's mission to catch criminals like him to ensure people's hard-earned money goes to its intended destination."

Mann is charged with two counts of uttering and publishing, a 14-year-felony; five counts of identity theft, a five-year felony; and five counts of stealing a financial transaction device, a four-year felony.

On June 4, 2006, Mark Furstenberg was found dead of natural causes in his Detroit home.

The next day his home was broken into, said police.

Maintenance crews reported signs of forced entry at Furstenberg's residence again in August.

After Furstenberg's death, his estate lawyer Howard Collens reported there had been several unauthorized transactions on Furstenberg's accounts at Fidelity Investments and Chase Bank.

The transactions were not authorized by his executor or the personal representative on his estate and totaled nearly $200,000, police said.

Investigators determined that Mann either wrote checks to himself from Furstenberg's account or transfered money from Furstenberg's account to his own bank account.

If convicted, Mann faces up to 14 years in prison.

Cox has created a Web site called ID Theft: Deceased Victims to help the public with this problem.