The owner of a five-bedroom home in Murrysville is accused of giving Westmoreland County authorities a bad $25,000 check in an effort to halt a tax sale of the property, according to court papers.

Prasad Margabandhu, 47, of Mt. Lebanon, was charged this week with misdemeanor bad checks.

County detectives said the Trafford Road property was up for tax sale July 21 as Margabandhu owes $81,000 in back property taxes, according to court papers. The property was deeded to him and his then-wife in 2007 in the upscale housing development Hilltop Estates, according to county records.

The house, which has five and a half bathrooms, apparently was put up for sale in 2009, according to a listing on Realtor.com. The listing was removed and then put back up for sale several times in the years afterwards, most recently being listed for sale at $499,000 in 2015.

The property was deeded to Margabandhu solely in 2010 and then transferred in 2015 for $1 to a “self holding company” he controlled, according to deed records. It was deeded back into Margabandhu’s name for $1 the following year and was transferred from him to Bandhu Property LLC for $1 in 2018.

In the deed filing, Margabandhu wrote that he had formed Bandhu Property LLC “in order to rehab and fix property.”

The day the property was set to be sold at tax sale, a judge granted Margabandhu an emergency motion that allowed him to pay $25,000 to the tax bureau in exchange for the sale to be halted. County officials were notified 10 days later that the check he provided was rejected for insufficient funds.

County officials gave him an additional 10 days to pay the $25,000 and then contacted county detectives last week, police said.

“Prasad Margabandhu never provided the $25,000,” detective Jason Napier wrote in court papers.

Margabandhu did not have an attorney listed in online court records. The charge was sent by summons and a preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 12. He could not be reached.

The property is listed for tax sale on Sept. 11 for $11,559.58. Property owners have until Sept. 8 to pay off tax debts. There are liens on the property filed by the state department of revenue, according to civil court records.

It’s not the first time Margabandhu has been involved in a situation where he owed a significant chunk of money related to property he owns.

He and his brother, as well as a string of their current or former businesses, showed up dozens of times in a review of civil court records in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. They were in business as Winghart’s Burger and Whiskey Bar when owners of Monroeville and Westmoreland malls sued them for more than $1 million in combined back rent.

A Penn Hills apartment complex Margabandhu owned was cited for a number of code violations that resulted in 25 families being forced to move, and he and his company owed back property taxes in Allegheny County.

The brothers’ bid in 2019 to have an expired liquor license transferred from the Hempfield Winghart’s location to a closed tavern in North Huntingdon was rejected. The Hempfield restaurant was closed as part of the landlord-tenant dispute that then involved $91,000 in unpaid rent.

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