Tax collector charged with stealing from 3 NJ municipalities

LOPATCONG — A Warren County municipal tax collector has been charged with stealing $75,000 from the three municipalities she worked for.

Rachellyn Mosher, a 48-year-old township resident, is accused of pilfering the funds between 2013 and this year in Loptacong, Harmony and White townships.

The amount she is accused of stealing is more than the $72,000 total base salaries she earned last year.

State Police said Saturday that the arrest followed an 11-month investigation. Mosher was suspended form her job in this township in February as the result of an internal investigation and the municipal governing body sought permission from the state to fire her. Officials, however, had kept mum on what she had been accused of doing.

Investigators say Mosher falsified municipal computer records to cover her tracks.

She was charged with three counts of second-degree official misconduct, which carries a mandatory minimum term of five years in prison; second-degree theft, two counts of third-degree theft, and three counts of third-degree tampering of public records.

New Jersey 101.5 did not know Saturday whether Mosher had an attorney who could speak on her behalf. She was being kept at the Warren County jail awaiting a court hearing.