Director of nonprofit overseeing Westmoreland County senior centers charged with stealing $4,000

NEW FLORENCE, Pa. (KDKA) -- The director of a nonprofit that oversees three Westmoreland County senior centers was charged with stealing more than $4,000, according to court documents.

As the director of the Laurel Valley Senior Citizens Corporation, police said Rocky Jo Yeager was given a corporate credit card to make authorized purchases. From 2020 to 2022, police said multiple unauthorized purchases were found on the card. 

The board of directors questioned Yeager, and she was fired. On the day she was fired, police said she paid off the remaining balance.

As the nonprofit investigated, police said it found two checks out of its bank account that were made out to Yeager totaling more than $5,300. The memos said the payments were for purchases of kiosks and sprayers for the centers, but investigators said the centers never got the sprayers, and Yeager never gave any documentation to support the dollar amounts written.

When police interviewed Yaeger, she said she wrote the checks to reimburse herself for the purchases. When she was asked to provide information on the Amazon orders, police said she gave partial orders that mostly had no payment method and no shipping or billing address shown. 

Yaeger then said she made the purchases from the nonprofit's account that she no longer had access to, but board directors said there's no such thing. 

Investigators said a search warrant on the Amazon account confirmed the orders Yeager gave were canceled and the purchases were never completed or shipped. All of Yeager's information was associated with the Amazon account, police said. 

A search warrant on Yeager's personal bank account also showed the two checks were deposited into her account, and only one purchase she claimed to make was found for $1,272. 

"Yeager wrote a total of $4,038.73 in checks to herself out of the Laurel Valley Senior Citizens bank account that she claimed was to reimburse herself for items she said she personally purchased but actually never did," police wrote in the criminal complaint. 

Yeager was charged with theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property.