CLEARFIELD – A Clearfield woman accused of violating her probation on a theft charge by committing another theft was sentenced in Clearfield County Court.
Cara Marie Artiola, 32, 315 Reighard St., Clearfield, must serve 30 days to one year in jail and one year consecutive probation for theft by failure to make required disposition of funds.
In March of 2011, she pleaded guilty to taking more than $1,000 from the Joseph & Elizabeth Shaw Public Library while she was an employee. For her latest case, she is charged with theft by unlawful taking, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, receiving stolen property and forgery. Artiola, who was the general manager of the Dimeling Senior Center, allegedly took more than $9,000 in rent monies between May and December of 2012.
She withdrew a guilty plea in the second case in January, which put that case back on the trial list. Her attorney, Ronald Collins, argued to postpone her revocation sentencing asking this be done when she is sentenced for the new case.
Judge Paul E. Cherry decided to proceed with the revocation because as he stated, the fact that Artiola waived her preliminary hearing was enough to revoke her probation. He did agree for her to serve her sentence on weekends because of health issues.
According to the affidavit of probable cause in the Dimeling case, an employee of Developac Inc. of DuBois who manages the Dimeling noticed that Artiola was not making rent deposits in a timely fashion. In February of 2013, she received a letter from the bank stating there were non-sufficient funds in the bank account, which had a negative balance of $1,350.63. After checking recent receipts, it was discovered that a deposit of $8,015 from December of 2012 was not received by the bank.
When police spoke with her in March, she admitted to stealing the cash. She explained she started with taking the cash rent of one person in May or June of 2012, but it slowly escalated until she was keeping all the rent paid in cash. In a written statement, she admitted to taking the funds to help pay bills and the other expenses of being a single parent.