Woman accused of stealing nearly $300,000 from Penn Hills refrigeration company
A woman from Armstrong County is accused of stealing nearly $300,000 from the Penn Hills refrigeration company that she used to work for.
The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday that Ashley Apperson, 34, of Leechburg is facing multiple charges after police she say she stole nearly $300,000 from Ventec Refrigeration.
According to the criminal complaint filed by police, detectives said that Apperson worked for the company from nearly four years and was responsible for things like processing payroll and other accounting duties and was terminated last month for performance issues.
Investigators said that the alleged thefts were discovered shortly after Apperson was terminated when an employee was looking up a check in the company's computer system when a typo led to the discovery of a non-payroll check made out to Apperson in a large amount.
A further search of the computer system, according to police, showed that between January 2025 and last month, approximately 88 non-payroll checks were issued to Apperson. None of these checks were authorized by the business, police said.
Police said they obtained a search warrant for the bank account where the unauthorized checks were deposited and learned it belonged to Apperson.
In addition to the unauthorized checks allegedly being deposited into Apperson's account, police said purchases were made by Apperson on a company credit card at places like Dave and Buster's, PayPal, and Amazon.
Police said that when they questioned Apperson about the alleged thefts, she admitted to using funds for online gambling and that she wanted to take responsibility for wheat was stolen.
Investigators said they determined that the approximately amount of money stolen from the company by Apperson came to just shy of $300,000.
According to online court records, Apperson was arraigned and released on nonmonetary bail and is set to face a preliminary hearing early next month on charges of theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, access device fraud, among others.
