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DURYEA &mdash; A secretary at Nativity of Our Lord Parish was arraigned Thursday on allegations she stole nearly $100,000 from parishioners&rsquo; donations.
				Police allege Denise Ann Decker, 62, of Ann Street, Duryea, admitted she had been stealing money from the parish for five years.
				In a statement from Eric M. Deabill, secretary for communications for the Diocese of Scranton, Decker was terminated from her position on Sept. 23, 2019.
				&ldquo;The parish and Diocese will continue to work with police in keeping with its zero tolerance policy towards financial malfeasance, the Diocese will aggressively seek full restitution of all unaccounted parish funds through the judicial process,&rdquo; Deabill stated.
				Deabill stated the parish continues to utilize numerous safeguards to include offertory collections are immediately secured in sealed, tamper-proof bags, and use rotating teams responsible for counting offertory collections.
				Annual contributions are also sent to each contributing parishioner at the end of each calendar year, Deabill stated.
				Decker was arraigned by District Judge Alexandra Kokura Kravitz in Pittston on two counts of theft and one count each of forgery and tampering with evidence. She was released on $100,000 unsecured bail.
				Decker was one of two secretaries at the parish.
				Police initiated the investigation in January 2019 when parish members suspected money was being stolen.
				According to the criminal complaint:
				Decker was responsible for maintaining a financial program called Quickbooks while the other secretary had the task of handling the Parish Data System (PDS), a program used to account parishioners&rsquo; donations.
				Police said Decker accessed the PDS program remotely and altered transactions showing more money was donated than physically deposited into the parish&rsquo;s bank, the complaint says.
				Volunteers every Monday would count the weekend collections documenting envelopes and money donated by each parishioner.
				Donated funds from each parishioner would then be entered into the PDS program.
				After Decker became a person-of-interest in the investigation, investigators intercepted garbage placed at the curb in front of her residence.
				Inside trash bags, the complaint says, were multiple church envelopes none of which belonged to Decker.
				Father John Polednak of the parish provided investigators with a list of 74 envelopes that he identified were missing from church services on March 16 and March 17, 2019.
				Trash intercepted by investigators on April 2, 2019, produced a total of 65 envelopes that matched the list Father Polednak had provided, the complaint says.
				Investigators executed a search warrant at Decker&rsquo;s residence recovering computers with the IP addresses linked to accessing the PDS program.
				During an interview with investigators, Decker admitted she had been stealing money from the church for approximately five years, the complaint says.
				Investigators in the complaint say Decker explained she would arrive for work on Monday mornings and remove money envelopes from the collection bags for weekend masses. She allegedly claimed the volunteers would count the money with the amount entered into the PDS program for each parishioner and would later access the program and adjust the monetary entries.
				Investigators allege Decker stole $98,205.78 from the parish.

Secretary of Duryea church charged with stealing donations