Former Doylestown Hospital employee charged after allegedly embezzling more than $600k from hospital
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- A former Doylestown Hospital director of medical staff has been charged for allegedly embezzling more than $600,000 from a hospital charitable account according to the the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.
Norma Galagarza, 68, had her arraignment Tuesday and was charged on felony counts of theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, knowledge that property is proceeds of illegal activity, forgery, access device fraud and computer trespass.
The Chalfont native retired from her position as the director of medical staff for Doylestown Hospital in March 2021 and the DA said one of her duties was to oversee the charitable donations account set up by the Medical Executive Committee.
The fund was created in the 90s to make charitable donations to the community and employees in need. Officials said the account was funded by donations made by physician leaders and was overseen by the Medical Executive Committee and managed by the director of medical staff.
Bucks County Detectives and the Doylestown Township Police Department began their investigation into the fund in January 2022 when the Doylestown Hospital Board of Directors reported they had received insufficient fund charges in one of their accounts, police said.
A spokesperson of Doylestown Health released a statement Wednesday:
"The office of the Bucks County District Attorney has charged Norma Galagarza, a former Doylestown Health employee, with a number of crimes, including theft and forgery.
Last year, Doylestown Health discovered an unauthorized account to which a portion of the Medical Staff funds were being misdirected. The matter was immediately reported to appropriate authorities.
These were private funds of the independent Medical Staff and were in no way connected to Doylestown Health Foundation or to the operation of Doylestown Hospital. This isolated incident has had no impact on patient care or delivery of services."
The Board of Directors said they didn't know the account was open and discovered the unauthorized activity then.
In 2007, officials said the committee stopped receiving monthly statements and the account subsequently went dormant. It actually wasn't until the insufficient funds notifications came through that they realized the account was still open, police said.
Upon further review, hospital personnel determined there were unauthorized withdrawals and deposits, totaling more than $55,000 from October 2020 to December 2021.
Hospital personnel then realized the mailing address of the account had changed from the hospital's address to Galagarza's home address. With Galagarza's previous position, she was solely responsible for reporting the money spent.
Detectives obtained search warrants and found she made approximately 896 unauthorized transactions that added up to approximately $604,702.29 from the years 2008 to 2021.
Police said she used the embezzled money to pay her personal taxes, real estate taxes, cell phone bills, car payments and credit accounts.
Following her arraignment, police said Galagarza was released on $250,000 unsecured bail.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story named Galagarza a Hospital Director based on information from the Bucks County District Attorney's Office. We have since clarified her position based on information from Doylestown Health.