The elderly marijuana-smoking woman in a wheelchair featured in viral video was once a millionaire who ran into hard luck and had a check worth $900,000 stolen and cashed by a thief

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The wheelchair-bound woman who was filmed smoking what appeared to be marijuana on a New York City subway last month was once a millionaire who ran into hard luck and became destitute within months of winning a large court settlement.

Michelle Carter, 60, was recorded on Instagram last month in a bizarre confrontation with a fellow passenger on a subway train, according to the New York Post.

A video of the incident, shot on an M Train in New York, was posted online and quickly racked up almost one-million views.

Now it has been learned that Carter had previously won a seven-figure settlement from the Transit Authority just two years ago.

Michelle Carter, 60, was filmed last month while she appeared to be smoking a 'blunt' on a New York City subway train. She then got into an argument with a young man

In 2005, Carter needed to have both of her legs amputated below the knee after she fell into the path of an oncoming F train in Roosevelt Island.

Carter claimed that she was pushed, while transit officials argued that she tried to commit suicide.

With no money, Carter continued to wander the streets until November 2014, when transit officials finally agreed to pay her $4million in damages, according to the Post.

In the two years since the settlement, all of the money she received has evaporated.

The video started when Carter appeared to be rolling a cigar while she was sat in her wheelchair

Her lawyers believe that Carter squandered some of it and gave some of it way.

She also was robbed of approximately $900,000.

A thief had snatched her bag and ran away as she was sitting in New York's Penn Station sometime in 2015, according to the Post.

The bag had contained a cashier's check for $886,339.96, an installment of the settlement she had reached with the Transit Authority.

The thief apparently managed to cash the check at a JP Morgan Chase branch.

Carter eventually sued the bank, claiming that it should never have allowed the thief to cash the check.

'She was victimized several times,' her lawyer, Robert Unger, told the Post.

The Instagram video featuring Carter last month proved to be a hit on the internet. 

It starts by showing Carter, who is not identified, rolling what appears to be cigar as she sits in her wheelchair.

A young man was seen on camera shouting at her during the bizarre altercation

A man off-camera is heard saying something, before the video cuts forward to Carter shouting back.

'If you smoke marijuana, why you don’t know what it is?' she said in the video, before shouting something undecipherable. 

The video then cuts to another recording, and the young man is heard threatening Carter.

'If you smoke marijuana, why you don’t know what it is?' Carter said in the video, before the young man shouted back: 'Get the f*** off my train. Dirty b***h. I’ll smack you and that hat, and that blunt'

The video ends by showing Carter on the ground on the train platform, appearing to have been knocked from her chair 

'Get the f*** off my train. Dirty b***h. I’ll smack you and that hat, and that blunt,' he said.

'Everybody on this train, I’m decking that b***h…Word, gangsta.'

The altercation continued, before the video against cut forward and this time showed Carter sprawled out on the train platform.

At points during the video an MTA worker can be seen in the background.

It is unclear from the video how she fell out of her wheelchair and how she got off the train.