Roanoke Valley SPCA says woman posed as volunteer, defrauded businesses for donations

Odyssey Fields
·2 min read

ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) — One local animal shelter is warning the public after a woman allegedly schemed several businesses out of donations.

The Roanoke Valley SPCA says a woman who claimed to be a volunteer, allegedly visited at least six businesses during December and January and collected goods and cash. The shelter also learned the woman allegedly used forged documents and claimed that she was collecting donations for the shelter, cash, and food for an alleged event.

However, the SPCA says the woman has no affiliation with the shelter and they have not received any donated goods or money from her.

“She was soliciting merchandise for a fake event. So, she was actually stealing the merchandise and when she didn’t get a donation from one local business, she shoplifted from them,” said Julie Rickmond, the marketing and communications director of the Roanoke Valley SPCA.

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As far as they know, the items stolen cost less than $1,000. The CEO of the Roanoke Valley SPCA Denise Hayes says they were made aware of the fraud activity after a familiar business contacted them.

“I’m appalled that someone would go to the lengths that… did in order to steal from our community. She created false documents, a fake volunteer profile…and went so far as to forge our board president’s signature while posing as a shelter volunteer,” said Denise Hayes, CEO.

The Roanoke Police Department confirmed that an investigation is ongoing, but couldn’t release any more information.

As a nonprofit that relies on donations, Rickmond says this is extremely harmful, and it takes away from animals in need.

“Those goods could have gone to help our shelter and to help the pets in our shelter. We are a nonprofit, we rely on donations from the public and the community. We have an amazing community that helps support us, but unfortunately, this person has decided to take away from pets in need which is really heartbreaking and really unfortunate,” Rickmond said.

The Roanoke Valley SPCA is encouraging any business, or person who suspects they might be a victim of this fraud to call the Roanoke police at (540) 853-2212.

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