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(CNN) - A church secretary has been accused of embezzling US $ 561,777 from the New Jersey church where she worked as a volunteer, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.
Taisha D. Smith-DeJoseph, 43, was responsible for overseeing church finances and opened electronic bank accounts for St. Paul Baptist Church and used the money for personal expenses, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said. a statement.
CNN contacted Smith-DeJoseph but received no response. So far there is no certainty if she has a lawyer.
Over the course of five years, completed in March 2019, Smith-DeJoseph allegedly used the stolen money to pay off his car loans, rents, credit card expenses, cable bills, cell phone receipts and to make hundreds of purchases online and pay for the place of your wedding, determined a police investigation.
CNN contacted St. Paul Baptist Church, in the municipality of Florence, about 32 miles northeast of Philadelphia, but received no response.
The church board of directors suspected a robbery around June 2019 and approached the authorities with their suspicions, which led to an investigation, Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, told CNN.
Smith-DeJoseph allegedly made purchases totaling US $ 266,595.65 through PayPal, according to Bewley, and purchases of US $ 22,812.69 from Amazon.
"People deposit the money that cost him so much to earn in the church and really hoped he would take care of it," the Rev. Fred Jackson told CNN KYW affiliate. “It is very painful for the whole congregation and it happened for several months, and what else can I say? It was devastating. ”
Smith-DeJoseph also allegedly issued payroll checks and reimbursement of supplies for her from the church's bank accounts and fabricated monthly statements to hide the true financial status of the church, according to a statement of probable cause from the Office of the Burlington County Prosecutor.
The woman was accused of multiple crimes, including theft by deception, criminal computer activity and non-payment of income tax.
A man who claimed to be Smith-DeJoseph's brother told KYW, a CNN affiliate, that he was not aware of the accusations.
"I know my sister and she would never do anything (expletive) like that," he said. The man was not named.
The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office indicated that in an attempt to hide the scheme, Smith-DeJoseph did not file income tax returns for 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. In 2017, he allegedly filed a fraudulent tax return.
The investigation concluded that Smith-DeJoseph "left the congregation with a negative balance of their accounts approximately 510 times over a period of seven years," said the statement of probable cause.
Smith-DeJoseph was arrested Tuesday morning after a search warrant at his home, according to Bewley.
The case will now go to a grand jury in Burlington County for a possible indictment, the prosecutor's office told CNN.
Isabelle Lee of CNN contributed to this report
Fraud
