Tina Koren, Whitehall Township’s tax collector and treasurer, was ordered to stand trial Tuesday on charges that she used her position to harass her next-door neighbors after they erected a greenhouse in their backyard that Koren didn’t like.
District Justice Todd P. Heffelfinger made the ruling following a hearing in which witnesses testified that she repeatedly reported the neighbors, who run an Allentown nonprofit, saying they were not paying taxes to Whitehall Township.
Koren, 65, denies the charges. Her attorney, Michael Donahue, asked the judge to dismiss the charges.
“This was a person who was a tax collector, probably an unpopular position to most people in the public, and she was just trying to do her job,” Donahue said.
The case stems from a series of what prosecutors described as “misleading” emails that Koren allegedly sent to the tax administration agency Berkheimer about her neighbors, Mary Ellen and Steven Griffin, who own the Allentown charity The Caring Place.
The tax-related emails started shortly after Koren filed a complaint in June 2025 stating that the Griffins were building a greenhouse on their property in the 3300 block of South Ruch Street without a building permit, prosecutors said. The couple planned to use the greenhouse for personal use, and to grow vegetables, which could be donated to people through The Caring Place, and to educate children about how food is grown.
Koren shares a property line with the Griffins. The township zoning office inspected the property, and the Griffins completed the necessary paperwork and got a permit for the greenhouse, District Attorney Gavin Holihan said in April.
Mary Ellen Griffin testified that Koren threw garbage at the greenhouse, including one time when Griffin was inside it. Griffin said she is a horticulturist.
Griffin testified that she has lived in Whitehall Township for 36 years, never quarreled with Koren before building the greenhouse, and even helped with Koren’s campaign “because it was the neighborly thing to do.”
Griffin testified that she started The Caring Place in 1996 and completed incorporation paperwork using her Whitehall Township address, but that the charity has always operated out of a West Hamilton Street building in Allentown.
County Detective Richard Heffelfinger, no relation to the judge, testified that Koren included a photo of a Caring Place van in at least one email, and claimed that other “concerned” neighbors who were tax-paying business owners sent her the photo. An analysis of the picture showed that it was shot from Koren’s home, Heffelfinger said.
When questioned about the emails, Heffelfinger said, Koren replied, “that’s not on me,” and said Berkheimer scans the internet for businesses in the township. Heffelfinger said the agency does not have that ability.
“It’s evident that the defendant was using her position as tax collector to push her own personal agenda,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Carly Levandoski said.
The hearing comes several weeks after Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners voted to eliminate Koren’s position. The board on June 8 passed an ordinance to ask the voters to replace the tax collector role with a finance director.
At the meeting, Commissioner Ken Snyder said the move had nothing to do with Koren, but was intended to bring Whitehall in line with state guidelines that suggest townships of Whitehall’s size move to a “more professional arrangement” of hiring a finance director who would handle multiple roles, including collecting taxes.
Koren, at that meeting, said the change didn’t make sense since more than 2,500 first-class townships in Pennsylvania have elected tax collectors.
The question will be put to the voters in November. If passed, the referendum would open the door for the township to create the finance director post, which would be a nonelected position appointed by the mayor and Board of Commissioners for an indefinite term.
Voters rejected a nearly identical referendum in 2023.
Koren is charged with official oppression and harassment, both misdemeanors. She remains free under $5,000 bail.