Authorities Seek More Victims Of Funeral Home Director's Alleged Thefts
BURGETTSTOWN (KDKA) -- Authorities say the owner of a funeral home stole from her elderly clients to help support her gambling habit.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro shared new details about the case against Lynn Sue Taucher during a news conference Thursday. She's the owner and funeral director at the Taucher Funeral Home in Burgettstown.
Taucher is charged with stealing $340,000 in pre-paid fees for funerals and co-mingling the money with her own personal account. She allegedly collected the advance payments from 49 clients over a more than nine-year period, but that may not be the end of it.
"We believe there are additional victims out there here in Washington County and potentially in other areas of southwestern Pennsylvania. And we have actually identified some additional victims and believe there are more," said Shapiro.
Shapiro is encouraging any person who believes they or a loved one was victimized in this case to contact the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigations by calling (412)-565-2192.
Taucher faces 46 felony counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, along with other charges. She waived her preliminary hearing last week and is free on $20,000 bail.
Speaking late last week, her civil attorney called the case a matter of shoddy book-keeping.
"I was hired a year ago to put together the escrow accounts required by law, fund them, which we have funded and submit a list of pre-need funerals to the state attorney general's office," attorney Jeffrey Weinberg said.
Investigators say Taucher admitted she put the pre-paid funeral money in her own PNC account and drew from it to support her gambling problem from 2006-16.
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"We've already provided pre-need funerals to some people who have passed away in 2016, so the number has gone down some. I began this process a year ago," Weinberg said.
Weinberg is of the opinion that the AG's office will drop all the charges.
"Because I think we will satisfy them as the criminal process unravels, we will satisfy the AG's office that we have complied with all of the pre-need funerals," Weinberg said.
Weinberg says if anyone has a question or concern about a pre-paid funeral, give him a call at (412)-877-0728.
