Upper Darby tax office worker stole more than $215K in public money, DA says

A 15-year employee in Upper Darby's tax office has been arrested and charged with stealing more than $215,000 over five years to pay for living expenses and fund her mounting drug habit, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office said.

Jessica Smith McCusker, 36, of Upper Darby, who has been suspended from her job since June 2, 2017, was charged with  theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and related crimes, officials said in a statement Tuesday.

McCusker admitted to investigators when she was interviewed at her home last year that she stole $216,740.15 from 2012 to 2017 to move to an apartment with her children and pay for rent, tuition, credit card debt, and drugs, the District Attorney's Office said.

"The defendant used her position of trust in Upper Darby to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from Upper Darby taxpayers," the District Attorney's Office said. "Then, to add insult to injury, she used the stolen money to buy drugs and pay credit card bills."

The investigation into McCusker began in May 2017, when the supervisor of the tax office opened one of McCusker's desk drawers to get an office form, officials said. In the drawer, according to the statement, the supervisor found "cash receipts for payments of residents' taxes," and Detective Michele Deery, who investigates economic crime for the District Attorney's Office, launched a probe into what appeared to be misappropriated public funds.

During an internal investigation, Upper Darby authorities suspected McCusker took cash payments from taxpayers, gave those taxpayers a receipt, and, instead of posting the receipts to the office's computer system, posted them to a previous day to avoid raising suspicion.