Tinton Falls woman charged with stealing $15,000 from fundraiser: cops
FREEHOLD – A Tinton Falls woman has been charged after police said she stole more than $15,000 from an online fundraiser she organized for a man severely in a car accident in Florida, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago announced Monday.
Nicole C. Weidelman, 46, is charged with third-degree theft by deception after being arrested last week, Santiago said.
An investigation led by Tinton Falls Police found that in November 2022, the intended fundraiser recipient was involved in a serious motor vehicle collision on I-95 in Florida, the prosecutor said. The recovery from the incident was "lengthy and costly, reportedly involving more than a dozen surgeries, a month and a half in the hospital, and the loss of an arm, necessitating a prosthetic."
Authorities discovered that Weidelman contacted the man’s mother, a longtime family friend, and offered to set up an online fundraiser to help pay the medical bills, according to Santiago. But after raising just more than $15,000, Weidelman transferred all the money into her own personal account through more than two dozen transactions, then provided numerous false explanations to the victims over the course of the next several months, before the theft was reported to authorities.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant Prosecutor Lawrence Nelsen, Director of the prosecutor’s Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Bureau, Santiago said.
Jenna Calderón covers breaking news and cold cases in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Before coming to the Press, she covered The Queen City for Cincinnati Magazine in Ohio. Contact her at 330-590-3903; jcalderon@gannettnj.com
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Tinton Falls woman raised money for crash victim, then stole it: cops
