Woman charged with taking thousands of dollars from injured sister
By Pat Reavy
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Taylorsville, Utah (KSL) — A Taylorsville woman is facing criminal charges after police say she took tens of thousands of dollars from her sister who had been awarded the money after she was hit by a car.
Marcey Jean Heisey, 43, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with unlawful dealing of property by a fiduciary, and financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, second-degree felonies.
Heisey’s sister was involved in a severe traffic accident in October 2020 that still impacts her cognitive functions today, according to court documents. She received a $68,000 settlement in 2022 from the incident which was placed in a special needs trust.
“The trust (stated) that ‘the trustee is a fiduciary and has a duty of loyalty to the beneficiary. The trust funds are to be used for the ‘sole benefit’ of the trust beneficiary,” charging documents state.
Starting in March of last year, the account had about $64,000 in it. But investigators discovered that just eight months later, in November, the account had less than $3,900 in it, the charges say.
As detectives continued to track where the money had gone, they learned that Heisey had made several transactions, including purchasing a truck in Bountiful using a debit card and spending money at a tanning salon, had made numerous ATM withdrawals and had withdrawn nearly $12,000 at her sister’s bank between September and October, according to charging documents.
Police informed the sister that “the trust balance was almost gone. (The sister) stated that she was shocked and unaware that so much money was gone, as she had not received more than a small portion of it in small payments by Heisey,” the charges state.
Valerie Heisey currently lives in a trailer home in Oklahoma and receives disability payments. But her caretaker, Joey, says she was depending on funds from the court settlement to buy a house.
“She needs to go to jail for this,” he said of Marcey Heisey’s alleged actions. “This has been years in the making. (Valerie) thought she could trust her because it was her sister.”
A friend further told investigators that Marcey Heisey called her sister around Thanksgiving and “begged her to not pursue charges,” according to court documents. She allegedly claimed she used some of the money “to care for her dog” and also told her “that she would send a generator instead of money to pay the heating bill.”
Police say as of November, the sister had received just over $10,000 from the account, “leaving over $50,000 unaccounted for and used by Heisey.”
Valerie Heisey has started a GoFundMe* to try and get back some of the money she lost so she can move into a new home.
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
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