Hospital worker steals $604,702 from charitable account to pay bills, officials say
While working as the director of medical staff for a Pennsylvania hospital, a woman embezzled more than $600,000 from a charitable account in a yearslong scheme, authorities said.
Now retired, Norma Galagarza has been charged with several felonies connected to the theft, according to an Oct. 24 news release from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. A defense attorney for the Chalfont woman, 68, was not listed in court records.
Before her retirement from Doylestown Hospital in March 2021, Galagarza was responsible for managing an account of charitable donations, authorities said.
“The account, known as the Charitable Fund, was created in 1991 as an employee benevolent fund to make charitable contributions to the community and employees in need,” according to the DA’s office. The account was funded through the donations of physician leaders and was overseen by the Medical Executive Committee.
But in 2007, the committee of physicians stopped receiving the account’s monthly statements and the fund “went dormant,” authorities said.
“It wasn’t until hospital officials began receiving the insufficient funds notices that they realized the account was still open,” the DA’s office said.
“Hospital personnel reviewed statements from the previous year and found unauthorized account activity which included unauthorized withdrawals and deposits, totaling more than $55,000 from October 2020 to December 2021,” officials said. “Hospital personnel also became aware that the mailing address of the account was changed from the hospital address to Galagarza’s home address.”
In January 2022, after a report from hospital directors, the Doylestown Township Police Department and Bucks County detectives began an investigation into the fund.
Authorities said Galagarza made nearly 900 unauthorized transactions from 2008 to 2021, stealing about $604,702 from the account.
“These were private funds of the independent Medical Staff, and were in no way connected Doylestown Health Foundation or to the operation of Doylestown Hospital,” Doylestown Health said in a statement to McClatchy News. “This isolated incident has had no impact on patient care or delivery of services.”
Galagarza used the money to pay her taxes, cellphone bills, car payments and credit cards, according to the release.
Authorities said Galagarza “was the sole person responsible for the reporting of all monies spent.”
She is charged with unlawful taking, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, knowledge that property is proceeds of illegal activity, forgery, access device fraud and computer trespass, according to the release. She was released from custody on a $250,000 bail.
Doylestown is about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.
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