CLEARFIELD – A Woodland woman accused of taking more than $100,000 from her employer pleaded guilty during plea and sentencing court in Clearfield County.
Jonelle S. Smeal, 48, 458 Pinetop Rd., Woodland, pleaded guilty to 20 counts of forgery, 10 counts of theft by deception and 18 counts of access device fraud.
She was sentenced to 7.5 months to two years less one day in jail and five years consecutive probation. Her plea agreement based the length of her incarceration on the amount of restitution she paid prior to sentencing.
Smeal has paid $75,000 toward her total restitution of $107,095.97. She was fined $750 plus costs.
The charges stem from incidents in December of 2009 through February of 2014 in Lawrence Township while she was employed at Walter Hopkins and Company.
Prior to sentencing, President Judge Fredric J. Ammerman noted that white collar crimes like this, “never seem to be punished enough.” He said, “I have no problems sending these people to state prison, even if it is their first offense.”
It is a worse crime for a trusted employee to steal from their company than someone to break into a camp and steal a few items, he said.
He commented that she didn’t take the money to feed her kids but instead was “living a lifestyle beyond her means at someone else’s expense.”
He did agree with the plea in this case because she had paid so much of the restitution. The lengthy probation period is so the court retains some control over her continued payments toward the balance of that restitution.
Smeal did apologize for her actions.
Originally she was charged with 74 counts of theft by unlawful taking, 34 counts of the theft by deception, 66 counts of forgery, 35 counts of access device issued to another who did not authorize use, 35 counts of other reason access device is unauthorized by issuer, 95 counts of receiving stolen property and tampering with records or ID.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, police met with employees of the company on April 28, 2014. They explained they had terminated Smeal, who was the office manager in February because she was using a company credit card for her own personal use.
She had two separate cards which she used to purchase airline tickets, toys, shoes, memberships, household items and gift cards. She charged $7,662.26 on one of the company credit cards and $3,222.60 on the other.
After she was terminated, it was discovered that she had been using a checking account for the company to pay for her personal credit card. The 45 checks from that account totaled more than $93,400. She also wrote five checks from that account to herself. These totaled $2,043.08.
She used deceptive means to obtain signatures on 17 checks that were intended to be used as payment for one of the company credit cards. Instead those checks were used to pay her personal credit card bill. She forged 33 checks to the credit card company and to herself with the signature of a company employee.
As the office manager, she was responsible for providing the payroll company with information on hours worked by employees including her own hours. On eight occasions she provided her hours incorrectly. This extra pay totaled $1,251.28 from February of 2012 to April of 2013.
Smeal was also responsible for compiling a reconciliation detail report for a company checking account. Between January of 2013 to Dec. 31, 2013 she altered some of the amounts to reflect a higher amount. She failed to record all of the checks she had written on that account to her credit card company.