A former Bradford County school director waived her right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday on charges she stole about $123,000 from a local educational foundation.
Kelly White, 49, of Wyalusing, was scheduled to appear for a hearing on almost 130 criminal counts accusing her of defrauding the Wyalusing Area Education Foundation.
White was the foundation’s treasurer since at least 2019. She resigned as a Wyalusing Area school director Feb. 9.
The foundation raises money to offer scholarships to students and grants to teachers for educational purposes.
How White was caught
An arrest affidavit says White knew that new foundation accounting software would reveal her secret, so she confessed to the foundation’s leader. Then, she confessed to state police, according to the affidavit.
Waiving a preliminary hearing means a suspect’s case moves in the county court of common pleas for further action, including potentially a trial, a guilty plea and sentencing.
The thefts happened between January 2019 and April, according to the affidavit.
White first confessed to Alexis Meunch, the foundation president, who called state police on Feb. 2.
White told Meunch she stole again and again from the foundation over a six-year period and estimated the total added up to $90,000 to $100,000.
“She knew Quick Books (the new accounting system) would have brought that discrepancy to their attention (and) she wanted to admit it,” Meunch told Trooper Joshua Fisher.
'Hard times' made her do it
Two days later, Fisher interviewed White at her home with another state trooper.
White said she had worked for the foundation since 2014 “and she and her husband fell on some hard times.”
“She admitted to a prior bankruptcy before she moved back to the area,” Fisher wrote in the affidavit. “White related things were tight and she panicked. And to cover rent of maybe a car payment she took money from the foundation with the thought she could put it back.”
Instead, she said, the foundation turned “sort of became a resource that (it) shouldn’t have, but was available for tough moments,” Fisher wrote.
“Every time she was going to put the money back, their paychecks would come and it wasn’t enough,” he wrote. “... (I)t became a cycle and no one knew, but she was working so hard when there was no (foundation) director, so she was helping out a lot with the foundation.”
Avoiding detection
She took the money out in a way — ATM or in-person withdrawals or checks — that made her think she would get caught. She sort of wanted to get caught, she told Fisher.
No one caught her. Sometimes, she used the money to take the family to the movies, buy homecoming dresses or pay for travel to visit colleges with one of her children.
Sometimes, she said, she had “extra money and put (it) back into the foundation account, but it was only a couple of thousand over the years.”
When she had to, she produced the documents she used to track money but not bank statements “so no one would see the discrepancies.”
A 'sign' to confess
When she heard about the foundation installing Quick Books, she thought, “Here’s my sign,” according to the affidavit.
Two weeks before she told Meunch, she told her sister and her husband what she did “and said she was going to take ownership of what she did,” according to the affidavit.
Her parents lent her $35,000, but she only returned $26,000 to the foundation, according to the affidavit.
Meunch told Fisher two days later that White returned $26,969 the day she confessed to her, leaving $96,340 to pay back.
Meunch found ATM withdrawals and checks on which White signed both signatures. She also failed to deposit cash sometimes from fundraisers. White told Fisher she never failed to deposit cash.
The formal charges
A message left with attorney Max Lubin, who is listed in court documents as representing White, was not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.
White is charged with one count of theft, a first-degree felony; 32 counts of unauthorized use of an ATM card to withdraw $500 or more, a third-degree felony; 60 counts of unauthorized use of an ATM card to withdraw between $50 and $500, a first-degree misdemeanor; 22 counts of unauthorized use of an ATM card to withdraw less than $50; and 14 counts of forgery for signing two names to checks.
Efforts to reach Meunch to ask about what steps the foundation is taking to prevent a repeat were unsuccessful.
The foundation's most recent tax filing available publicly shows revenue of $133,281 and net assets of $310,952 for the fiscal year that ended in June 2024.
In February, the foundation is working with an insurance carrier to pursue recovery of the funds and is “committed to identifying and accounting for every dollar possible.”
