Feb 24, 2018 3 min read

A former Smith Township funeral director pleaded guilty Friday to charges stemming from allegations she’d commingled clients’ funds with her own and forged a woman’s signature on a document to have insurance money paid to her business.

Lynn Sue Taucher, 57, pleaded guilty to charges of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and forgery before Washington County Judge Michael J. Lucas.

Deputy State Attorney General Courtney Butterfield told the judge Taucher – who’s listed in court papers as living at the same address as the Erie Mine Road funeral home she’s owned since 1992 – and her attorney “have been very cooperative in making sure everyone has been reimbursed.”

“Everyone that has been identified has been made whole, and if they haven’t been, then I would ask that they contact our office,” Butterfield said outside Lucas’ courtroom. “That’s been the goal since day one.”

Kevin Zenski, Taucher’s attorney, gave a similar account of the situation.

“If someone doesn’t have a check at this point, it would be because of a mailing issue,” he said.

Butterfield also said Taucher voluntarily surrendered her funeral director’s license.

Zenski said his client is trying to sell the business.

“We have a prospective buyer I’d rather leave unnamed at this point,” he said.

State investigators brought charges a year ago based on Taucher’s dealings with clients between 2006 to 2016.

At the heart of the case were allegations Taucher had collected $340,000 for prepaid funerals from 49 people and commingled it with her own personal funds, instead of keeping the money in an escrow account and reporting it to the state as required by law, according to court papers.

One of those customers also told an investigator she’d been in Florida the same day in 2012 when she had purportedly co-signed a paper authorizing funds from her late husband’s insurance policy to be released to the funeral home.

Taucher’s plea deal includes no agreement concerning the sentence she’ll receive. Zenski said prosecutors aren’t seeking prison time. Butterfield said the sentence is “completely up to the judge.”

Lucas set sentencing for 1 p.m. March 16 following a pre-sentencing investigation.

Zenski said Lucas’ office had received “30-some letters” about the case that will become part of the court record at the sentencing proceeding.

“The vast majority of those letters are in support of my client” and attesting to her good character, he said.