A former treasurer of the Kingston Township Raiders youth football organization was hit with felony theft charges for stealing more than $19,000 from the group, police said.
Holly Bolesta, 40, of 64 Monroe Ave., Dallas, was charged with two felony counts of theft and one misdemeanor count of prohibited solicitation of funds for charity.
According to the arrest affidavit:
Donald Bowden, the president of the football team for 2012, approached Kingston Township police in November to report that the treasurer, Bolesta, was suspected of taking money from the organization’s M&T Bank checking account and its ING savings account.
Police told Bowden to report the suspicions to the state Bureau of Charitable Organizations for an audit, which he did, the affidavit says.
In August 2013, police received all of Bolesta’s financial information from Citizens Bank concerning accounts Bolesta held singularly or jointly while she served as treasurer since January 2009.
A review of Bolesta’s financial records showed 32 checks from the organization were deposited into Bolesta’s account. All the checks had her signature and the forged signature of the organization president at the time for 2010, 2011 and 2012, which was in accordance with the organization’s bylaws, requiring two signatures on each outgoing check.
The audit revealed that Bolesta used $19,720 of the organization’s funds for her own personal use and benefit. Of the amount, Bolesta reimbursed the organization $13, 325, leaving $6,394 unaccounted.
Bolesta would tell board members the balances on the group’s two bank accounts, but after Bowden was sworn in as president in January 2012, he told Bolesta he wanted her to produce bank statements at monthly board meetings so they could discuss the finances.
But when Bolesta failed to produce any statements by late June 2012, Bowden went to the bank to get them himself and was told he could not access the account because his name was not on it — despite Bolesta having him sign an authorization for the account when he became president in January 2012.
Bowden confronted Bolesta about it, and she assured him she had turned in the form, saying it must have been lost.
About two weeks after Bowden confronted her, Bolesta told him she was going to close out the two existing accounts and open a new one. They planned to meet at the bank shortly thereafter, but when Bowden went to the bank, he found that Bolesta had already opened the account the day before.
Bolesta told him that she transferred $5,000 from the ING account into the new one and would soon transfer the balance.
Bowden asked the bank teller for a statement on the new account and found the $5,000 was transferred from Bolesta’s personal account.
Bowden also reported he directed the team’s secretary to assume collecting the mail in April 2012, but Bolesta failed to turn over the mailbox combination until the end of July or beginning of August.
When the secretary checked the mail, she found an overdraft notice saying that the group’s ING savings account, which should have had more than $3,000, had a negative balance of $300.
After learning there was a serious shortfall, Bowden called a board meeting and confronted Bolesta, who responded by saying, “I really messed up and I got in trouble.”
Bolesta remains free on $5,000 unsecured bail set by Magisterial District Judge James E. Tupper. Her preliminary hearing is set for May 15 at 9:30 a.m.
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