Another ex-shelter official charged in theft

A second former employee of a nonprofit organization that runs a transitional shelter in Kalaeloa for homeless people has been accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The state attorney general’s office filed felony theft charges Monday against former Wai­anae Community Outreach Executive Director Sophina Pla­cen­cia. A state judge set bail at $50,000.

On March 17 former program director Laura Pitolo was indicted by an Oahu grand jury on six counts of felony theft for allegedly stealing more than $500,000 from WCO and the state between March 2007 and July 2010. Pitolo posted $50,000 bail March 20 and is scheduled to appear in state court Friday.

The charges filed Monday accuse Pla­cen­cia of stealing about $200,000 from WCO and the state between December 2007 and June 2013 by using the organization’s money to make unauthorized ATM withdrawals and debit transactions, write unauthorized checks to herself and her mother and make unauthorized purchases of cashier’s checks for herself.

The unauthorized purchases included trips to the mainland and neighbor islands, meals at restaurants and nightclubs, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The state is listed as a plaintiff because WCO received state money to run the transitional shelter.

It was Placencia who first reported to police that Pitolo had stolen money from the organization. That was in July 2010, two months after Pla­cen­cia said the WCO fired Pitolo.

In April 2013 the organization learned that police had not filed criminal charges against Pitolo and that the three-year statute of limitations was about to expire. So WCO sued Pitolo for $732,046 in missing operational and client trust funds.

According to charges against both women, the clock for the statute of limitations started September 2013, when the state assigned a special investigator to look into the possible misuse of state funds from contracts the state Department of Human Services had awarded to WCO.