BARRE — A Berlin woman who stole thousands of dollars from an ill man while she worked as his caretaker has been discharged from probation after failing to complete the community service portion of her sentence.
Valerie L. Tofani, 54, admitted to the violation of probation on Monday in Washington County criminal court in Barre. Tofani was then given an unsatisfactory discharge from probation.
She had pleaded no contest in October 2019 to a felony count of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, a misdemeanor count of embezzlement and two misdemeanor counts of credit card fraud. Tofani was sentenced to one to three years, all suspended except for 45 days of work crew, and placed on probation for three years.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault said at Monday’s hearing Tofani’s work crew sentence was converted to community service because of the coronavirus pandemic. She failed to complete 264 hours of community service prior to her term of probation expiring, according to court records, so a violation of probation was filed by the state Department of Corrections in September.
Rather than revoking Tofani’s probation and giving her the suspended sentence of one to three years to serve, Thibault and Avi Springer, Tofani’s attorney, reached an agreement with which Tofani would be given an unsatisfactory discharge from probation.
Judge Kevin Griffin said that discharge will now be part of Tofani’s record and would be taken into consideration in the future if she were to pick up more criminal charges.
“Should you get into any further difficulty in the future, that’s going to be there for a judge to see whether or not it makes sense to try probation again,” Griffin said.
Thibault said he was disappointed that Tofani hadn’t done the community service. The prosecutor said if she picks up charges in the future, she’s likely looking at a to-serve sentence and any leniency or creativity that could have been extended for the sentence will not be available.
Springer didn’t get into details, but he said Tofani has been dealing with health issues, which preclude her from working and impacted her ability to do the service. He said trying to come up with a plan to do those hours at this point did not appear to be an option.
Tofani declined to speak when given the opportunity Monday.
The judge said it was discouraging that Tofani didn’t complete the hours since the court tried to be as flexible as it could under the circumstances. But he said if Tofani never comes back to court, she won’t have to worry about it.
According to court records, Tofani worked in 2018 as a caretaker for a man in poor health. Police said the victim reported Tofani had been using his credit cards without permission and had taken about $9,500 of his money over the span of about three months.
Police said the investigation revealed Tofani had used the victim’s cards about 70 times without permission. She had withdrawn the victim’s money from banks in Richmond, Barre, Northfield, Johnson, Georgia, Montpelier, Fairfax, Jeffersonville and Milton, according to court records.
eric.blaisdell @timesargus.com
