Tax Collector Stole $400K

⏱ 2 min read

Karen McGinnis, 46, of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, is trading her office for a federal cell after admitting she siphoned over $400,000 from the taxpayers of Fairview Township. The former tax collector used her position to write checks to herself from collected property taxes between March 2023 and January 2025. The scheme wasn’t limited to the township; she also pilfered funds intended for Luzerne County and the Crestwood School District.

Federal Judge Karoline Mehalchick handed down a 20-month sentence on March 17th, a small price to pay considering the scope of the theft. McGinnis already returned about $40,000, but she’s still on the hook for a whopping $367,088.35 in restitution – money she stole from schools and local services.

The victims weren’t just faceless institutions. Federal grants totaling over $10,000 were allocated to both Luzerne County and Crestwood School District during the period of McGinnis’s greed. Those funds were also swept up in her scheme.

Following her time behind bars, McGinnis will endure three years of supervised release. The investigation was led by the IRS-Criminal Investigation division (IRS-CI), who painstakingly traced the missing funds and built the case against her.