Woman Steals Elderly Mother’s Retirement to Go on Gambling Bender

The 56-year-old woman, one K.J.W., is said to have used her power of attorney over her mother’s estate, which she obtained in 2022, to empty the victim’s savings account. K.J.W. received power of attorney after her mother began exhibiting signs of early dementia and entrusted her daughter with her care and finance management.

Power of Attorney and Unchecked Gambling Spending

Presently, K.J.W., who had an income of merely $1,600 when she went on her gambling bonanza, faces four felony counts, among which are financial exploitation of an older adult or care-dependent person, theft by deception-false impression, theft by deception-prevent acquisition of information, and theft by deception-failure to correct.

However, the suspect is said to have taken $123,000 out of her mother’s life savings account and then spent the amount to fuel her gambling habit over the next two years. The police allege as part of an investigation that the suspect used the funds to play at Pennsylvania and Upstate New York Casinos between March 2022 and September 2023.

K.J.W. similarly obtained access to her mother’s other account, where she obtained another $27,000 that was subsequently spent on her gambling. As to the venues she frequented to gamble, there have been many such places.

She used to take rides to the Seneca Casino in Salamanca, New York, a 15-minute drive north from Ridgway, where she signed up for the casino’s loyalty program. K.J.W. similarly would spend money on unregulated games, such as skill games, that are currently a contentious point in the Keystone State but are presently considered unregulated.

She would play at various venues that hosted such machines in Punxsutawney and Reynoldsville. The suspect is said to have lost a total of $24,000 at the Seneca Casino alone, although this number solely depends on whether she used her loyalty cards before every play.

Animal Cruelty and Drug Manufacturing

The woman has been remanded to Jefferson County’s Brookville Correctional Facility and is unlikely to pay the $100,000 bail, as her income has dried up. It is not yet clear what happened to the woman’s elderly mother and who is in charge of her well-being right now.

K.J.W. has been known to law enforcement for a while. Previously, she was charged with animal cruelty – a third-degree felony, when she was working as a caretaker at an animal shelter.

Police in DuBois did charge her with 22 counts of animal cruelty and just earlier in December, a new allegation was leveled against her, with investigators arguing that K.J.W. was looking to manufacture and distribute illegal narcotics.