Assistant town clerk denied special probation

LITCHFIELD » Assistant Town Clerk Tara Yard, who is facing a felony larceny charge, was denied accelerated rehabilitation this week when she sought to enter the diversionary program that allows the charges to be dropped if completed.

Yard, 56, of Pine Ledge Way, Norfolk, is charged with first-degree larceny for allegedly unlawfully transferring or spending more than $75,000 from an account set up to provide for the care of a local woman, according to an affidavit.

Accelerated rehabilitation is a diversionary program that requires a defendant to fulfil certain requirements, such as community service, and have the charge against them dismissed. The defendant must be determined not to be a risk to offend again.

According to the affidavit, a Virginia woman hired Yard to care for her aunt, in 2012. Yard was a local resident and had offered care for others in the past.

The Virginia woman contacted the state police in July 2015, saying that “funds were possibly being misappropriated, as well as serious discrepancies in payroll concerning Yard.”

According to the affidavit, the complainant “wanted to make it clear that there have never been complaints concerning (the aunt’s) care, only financial discrepancies.”

A joint account between Yard and the Virginia woman had been created to pay for “payroll checks, expenses informed for (the aunt’s) care, and expenses for goods purchased” for the aunt, according to the affidavit.

Accountant Robert Pallone, according to the affidavit, had told the Virginia woman that he “estimated more than $100,000 had been taken” from the account “over several years,” including approximately $12,000 in payroll discrepancies. The Virginia woman contacted Yard about this $12,000 figure, according to the affidavit. Yard responded by offering to pay the sum back over time. The Virginia woman did not respond to that offer, sent the email to police, and ended Yard’s employment on July 4, 2015.

Through a review of pertinent records, a state trooper determined that “Yard had fraudulently taken money in several different ways,” according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, these ways included: more than $19,000 in unauthorized transfers to Yard’s personal account; more than $21,600 in checks written to cash or without a memo; more than $14,270 in mis billed hours; and more than $31,000 in expenditures at grocery stories, including $26,820.19 at Stop & Shop.

The purchases at grocery stores, according to the affidavit, “were not for (the aunt’s) household, as grocery items were rarely seen in the house, and (the aunt) was on a liquid diet, requiring little to no groceries.”

According to the affidavit, Michelle Paige, a former fraud investigator for the State Attorney’s office, “calculated that $75,165.18 had been unlawfully taken from the shared account by Tara Yard.”

The sum was not reported as income on Yard’s tax returns for 2013 or 2014, according to the affidavit.

As the court weighed Yard’s application for accelerated rehabilitation this week, State’s Attorney David Shepack said that Yard had made a purposeful decision to steal from the aunt.

“What we have here was the conscious decision to steal, steal again, and steal again,” said Shepack.

Yard had also “deliberately sought to isolate the victim,” Shepack said. The aunt, he said, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. “In the very strongest of terms, I would urge the court to deny this (accelerated rehabilitation) application,” said Shepack.

In a memo filed along other documents concerning Yard’s case, her attorney, James Townsend, urged the court to grant the accelerated rehabilitation request due to Yard’s age, her history of service to the community — noting both her status as assistant town clerk and as a former member of the Region 7 Board of Education, among other responsibilities — and her response to dealing with the recent death of her son.

The aunt’s health had improved under Yard’s care, Townsend said, but the demands of providing this care had grown over time into “a small business and full-time job,” requiring the hiring of seven employees.

“It was the business end of it that Yard could not handle,” wrote Townsend. “In the end, Yard was completely overwhelmed by the responsibilities and size of the job.”

Yard detailed the care she provided to the aunt in a letter attached to Townsend’s memo, but echoed that the bookkeeping had become a problem for her and offered to repay the funds.

“In hindsight, I was over- whelmed by the bookkeeping. It was always the last thing done; her health, comfort and welfare were my most important goals,” wrote Yard. “Given that the missing funds occurred under my watch, I take full responsibility and intend to restore those funds.”

Shepack called this “a flaccid acceptance of responsibility.” A series of community members, including Town Clerk Linda S. Perkins, Norfolk Lions Club President Sandy Evans, and former National Public Radio correspondent Anne Garrels, also offered letters in support of Yard’s application, which are now contained in her court file.

“In my experience, Tara has been scrupulously honest,” wrote Garrels, who said that Yard had cared for her mother-in-law and took on household care for her and her husband as the two dealt with medical issues. “If she has any faults, it is perhaps that she trusts that others will be as straight and dependable as she is. She has no guile and is confounded by those who play games. She is, perhaps, naive.”

Shepack pushed back against the notion that Yard’s reputation in the community would mean she could not have committed the alleged theft Tuesday.

“The image that people project to the outside world... is (at) times very different then the person behind close doors,” said Shepack. “(I)t’s certainly not a strange concept to human experience.”

Yard’s application for accelerated rehabilitation was rejected Tuesday, as the “court cannot find that the crime is not of a serious nature,” according to court documents.

Her case was continued, and she is next scheduled to appear in court July 25.