WISCONSIN RAPIDS − A 65-year-old Nekoosa woman was sentenced April 10 to eight years of probation and must pay $82,438 restitution for stealing from an elderly Arizona woman’s account.
Janice A. Christiansen pleaded guilty April 10 to theft in a business setting. Wood County Circuit Judge Timothy Gebert withheld a prison sentence and placed Christiansen on probation. He ordered her to pay $82,438 restitution, with $5,000 to be paid by May 11 and $500 a month to be paid starting June 1. Gebert also ordered Christiansen to undergo any counseling deemed necessary, have no contact with the victim and not to serve as a guardian or power of attorney for anyone other than her spouse.
According to the criminal complaint, on Nov. 10, an investigator from the state of Arizona contacted the Wood County Sheriff’s Office and said she was investigating fraudulent spending from an 82-year-old Tucson, Arizona, woman’s bank account. The woman has dementia and is in an assisted-living community, the investigator said…