A Green Lane woman is accused of illegally embezzling $617,147 from a Hatfield Township business over the course seven years. Carol Ann Snyder, 58, of Macoby Street, faces 154 felony charges for her alleged actions over seven years as the office administrator at Hardy Machine, located at 2326 North Penn Road.

            Snyder faces 25 forgery counts, one count each of receiving stolen property, theft by unlawful taking and 127 counts of access device fraud, according to information posted on a state judicial website. Kevin Steele, the Montgomery County District Attorney, and William Tierney, chief of the Hatfield Township Police Department, announced her arrest Tuesday morning.

            A 20-year employee of the business, Snyder was solely responsible for payroll, accounts receivable/payable, balancing the books, and the entire management of the company's finances. An investigation by the local police department found a total of 1,758 unauthorized and non-business related purchases between 2012 and Aug. 8, 2019, according to a news release issued by Steele's office.

            An alert from a credit card company about an overdue payment – on an account believed to be inactive for several years – alerted the business owner to the potential thefts. Hardy estimated the loss at more than $500,000, according to the DA's office.

            An investigation opened Sept. 26 by the local police department turned up numerous non-business related purchases by Snyder. They included various retail stores, grocery stores, online businesses, an auto repair shop, gas stations and utility companies, among others. Other purchases were made to a country club, disc jockey, tuxedo and bridal stores that coincided with her two daughters' weddings, according to the police criminal complaint filed in the Lansdale court of District Judge Edward Levine.

            Snyder also allegedly wrote unauthorized checks to various business entities such as insurance companies, loan companies, banks, a video production company, utility and credit card companies. Hardy discovered that she forged his name on 24 checks, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed Oct. 23.

            Prior to informing the police about the missing money, the boss met with Snyder and told her that "she shouldn't have done it," according to the legal document. Snyder told Hardy that she "wrote one or two checks to herself." She also allegedly admitted to using the business credit card for personal reasons, and offered give up her 401(k), saying she "didn't want to go to jail."

            On Sept. 23, Snyder told local authorities that she used the company credit card "for food for my kids and I don't know when it started." The woman admitted to making out checks to herself, saying, "I would put invoices in to cover the checks." Snyder also reported that she did not know when she started writing unauthorized checks and admitted that she signed Hardy's name on some of the checks, according to court records.

            Snyder was arraigned Oct. 23 before Levine, who set bail in the case at $200,000 monetary. The defendant was remanded to Montgomery County Prison. A preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for 11:45 a.m. on Nov. 5.