Former soccer association treasurer gets probation for $100K theft

The former treasurer of a Beaver County youth soccer association who pleaded guilty to embezzling $100,000 from the organization will serve probation rather than prison time, a judge ruled Friday.

Jenessa Tolejko, 35, must serve five years of probation and repay $100,000 in restitution, according to the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab. She will be under house arrest for the first nine months of the sentence.

Tolejko was charged in federal court in March with wire fraud, and she pleaded guilty in lieu of a grand jury indictment. The charges stem from fraud she committed during her time as treasurer of the Brighton Township-Beaver Soccer Association.

Beginning in early 2016 when she was elected through mid-2019, Tolejko wrote checks to herself and withdraw cash from the account worth $100,000 originally paid by soccer parents to the association, according to court records. Investigators said she spent the money on utilities, insurance, a cruise and a flight to Hawaii.

In 2019, she opened a new bank account in the soccer association’s name, something prosecutors say was an attempt to cover up the fraud, as a new bank account would not have the years’ worth of records showing the unauthorized transactions.

Other soccer association officers confronted Tolejko after an August 2019 report by the Tribune-Review indicated she was accused of stealing $3,000 in pet adoption fees from an animal rescue she’d volunteered with.

“I am incredibly embarrassed and filled with remorse for the bad decisions I have made,” Tolejko wrote in a letter to Schwab. “I recognize how I failed in my duty to respect and abide by our country’s laws and how I have utterly failed in the position of trust our local community bestowed upon me as treasure of our soccer league and as a role model to my three children.”

She wrote that her youngest son has a form of cystic fibrosis, and his condition began worsening around the time she began stealing from the association.

“The cost of our bills became overwhelming. At first, I thought I’d just borrow the money and not tell anyone, hoping to pay it back soon,” she wrote, noting her husband was up for a promotion and she hoped to return to work. “Things, however, kept snowballing as I stole more and more as the opportunity to pay the money back never came and I lost track of how much I’d taken.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office had pushed for prison time for Tolejko, alleging her defense — that she stole the money to pay for medical care for son and make ends meet — are dubious.

“It is true that money paid by parents was used to pay Tolejko’s bills at Comcast, Duquesne Light, PennyMac, People’s Gas, Progressive, State Farm, and Verizon. But the total amount of money paid to those entities from the Soccer Association’s Citizens account was about $17,000,” prosecutors wrote.

The rest, they said, went toward cruises, airline tickets, clothing and more.

Schwab opted for probation in the end. He ordered that she pay no less than $1,000 a month toward her restitution.