A Winthrop woman sentenced to prison in April for embezzling more than $30,000 from a local church has been indicted on a charge of underreporting her income to receive state assistance.
Tricia Day, 35, was indicted in August on one charge of theft by deception and two charges of unsworn falsification.
The indictment alleges Day, from August 2012 until December 2014, committed theft by receiving money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and MaineCare after she “did intentionally create or reinforce the impression that she received no more than $500 to $800 semi-monthly, which impression was false and which the defendant did not believe to be true.”
It says she knowingly omitted information from a written application for benefits that would have indicated her income was higher than she had reported previously.
An indictment is not a determination of guilt, but indicates that there is enough evidence to proceed with charges and a trial.
The grand jury indictment states the value of the allegedly improper benefits was $1,000 to $10,000.
Day was sentenced in April to serve 11 months in prison, with the remainder of a five-year sentence suspended, for embezzling more than $30,000 from January 2013 until January 2015 from Winthrop United Methodist Church, where she was employed as office manager and treasurer.
Her current address is listed on the indictment as “Maine Department of Corrections.”
When Day was indicted on those charges in June 2015, Pastor Ned Crockett said Day had worked for the church for more than four years and was fired in December 2014.
In an unrelated case, a Florida man was indicted on two counts of theft and one count of intentional evasion of income tax for allegedly receiving more than $10,000 from the state Department of Labor while creating the false impression he was not working or earning income from February 2014 through March 2015.
Duane Cole, 58, of New Smyrna, Florida, with his wife, received a federal income tax refund of more than $1,000 by underreporting their income on their married joint 2014 federal income tax return, according to the indictment. It also alleges that he concealed sources of income to evade paying more than $2,000 in state income taxes, also in 2014.
Also indicted recently was Timothy C. Cook Jr., 35, of Brunswick, on five counts of failure to pay state income tax, by receiving taxable income but not paying the tax due for that income, each year from 2010 to 2014. The indictment notes Cook was convicted previously, in 2003, of three counts of failure to file state income tax returns, and in 2010 of five counts of failure to file state income tax returns.
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