In court on Thursday, Kelly Blackwell pleaded guilty to three charges of embezzlement and one charge of financial exploitation of a mentally incapacitated person.
Several other charges against Blackwell – two counts of issuing bad checks and two counts of credit card theft – were dropped due to issues surrounding evidence of the crimes.
The charges to which Blackwell pleaded are each felonies and each carry 10 years in prison.
However, Blackwell's prison sentence has been suspended to allow her to instead pay restitution in full.
The court ordered her to pay back $36,365 to an elderly family member. According to her charges, while legally granted power of attorney for him, she convinced him to obtain a loan against a home he owned. The charges related to accusations of taking credit cards and using them for fraudulent purchases were dropped. That elderly family member is now at risk of losing his home.
Blackwell was ordered to pay back $15,901.36 to the Buffalo Gap Quarterback club. She served as treasurer for the club from January 2017 to December 2018. During that time, she admitted pocketing thousands of unaccounted concession stand sales. Blackwell had reported to the club that their bank account had around $15,000 in it, but after checking the accounts, the club saw there was actually less than $50.
Blackwell will have to pay back at least $500 a month to her elderly family member so he does not lose his home and at least $100 a month to Buffalo Gap. She gets five years to pay back both amounts in full.
If that restitution goal is not met, Blackwell will be ordered by the court to serve her prison sentence.
As part of the plea agreement, Blackwell also cannot serve as a caretaker, guardian or power of attorney for any incapacitated person in the next 10 years.
She'll face a restitution review on August 14.
It's still unclear to the court why she took the money.
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Augusta County woman pleads guilty to embezzlement, financial exploitation
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