News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Woman pleads guilty to defrauding father of over $187,000 dollars.

Ginger Kinney, 61, of Mt. Perry pled guilty to two counts of theft from the elderly, a felony of the second and third degree, respectively. She faces up to eleven years in prison at sentencing. Many of the charges in the indictment are anticipated to be dismissed at her sentencing as they involve smaller individual crimes of theft that ultimately become part of the greater theft charges to which she has pleaded guilty.

In 2023, a report was filed with the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office by Thomas Taylor, a resident of Mt. Perry, Ohio, revealing allegations of financial fraud perpetrated by his daughter, Ginger Kinney. The complaint outlined a series of unauthorized transactions and mismanagement of Taylor’s finances spanning over a decade, totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Taylor, now 85 years old, entrusted Ginger Kinney with significant financial responsibilities under a 2010 Power of Attorney (POA). This POA authorized Kinney to act as Taylor’s agent to protect his interests. Kinney pled guilty to abusing this authority, engaging in a pattern of unauthorized transactions and personal enrichment at her father’s expense. In June 2021, Taylor revoked Ginger’s POA authority, replacing her with three other daughters after suspecting misconduct.

Kinney’s fraudulent activities began as early as 2009 and continued until mid-2021. The investigation conducted by Det. Brad Shawger reviewed extensive financial records and identified numerous transactions made without Taylor’s knowledge or consent. And while Ms. Kinney did make deposits into the joint account belonging to her father, the total amounts deposited over the years does not come close to matching the unrealized income she failed to account for.

These transactions include:

Rental Income Retention: Mr. Taylor owned several properties including a lease of farmland which were "managed" by the Kinneys. Mrs. Kinney failed to remit these funds to Mr. Taylor, nor did she report this rental income under either her own or Mr. Taylors tax returns.

Credit Card Misuse: Cash withdrawals and transfers to Kinney, alongside payments for personal expenses, many of which Taylor did not authorize. Payments were made on various accounts unknown to Mr. Taylor such as doordash and paypal. These accounts were closed due to fraud and balances discharged.

Utility, Insurance and Property Tax Payments: Ms. Kinney paid for many of her own personal expenses out of Mr. Taylors checking account for which she was listed as a co-account holder as his Power of Attorney.

When the fraud was discovered, Taylor’s other family members took proactive steps by filing fraud reports with multiple financial institutions and uncovering further evidence of misuse.

The total financial impact of the case likely exceeds $200,000.

With the help of Taylor’s attorney Grant Stubbins, the family ultimately reported the theft to law enforcement.

Kinney was originally charged with a large number of felonies, each count describing one of the ways in which she committed the theft offenses to which she pled guilty. As a matter of competent prosecution, persons are charged with all of the laws they violate while committing crime, so they cannot appear in court and claim innocence to one crime while admitting to committing an uncharged crime.

Once convicted, however, a person cannot be punished over and over for the same acts. Duplicative charges are often dismissed once a person agrees to plead guilty, as occurred in this case.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Michael Hughes indicated that the case highlights the vulnerability of elderly individuals to financial exploitation by trusted family members.

"Financial fraud cases are difficult to investigate and prosecute, but protecting our elders is an essential service for this community, and we take the challenge head-on.”

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