WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — The Whitehall Township treasurer is accused of using her position to harass her neighbors.<\/p>\n
Tina Koren, who also serves as the township’s tax collector, was charged this week with misdemeanor counts of official oppression and harassment, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Investigators say that last summer, Koren’s next-door neighbor on Ruch Street in Whitehall decided to build a small greenhouse on their property, in order to grow produce to give out at their nonprofit organization, The Caring Place, which operates in Allentown.<\/p>\n
Koren is then accused of emailing Berkheimer Digital Tax Services multiple times over the next few months, in her official capacity as tax collector, insisting that the neighbors were running part of their business out of their Whitehall home and thus owed business taxes, officials say.<\/p>\n
She even sent a photo, which she claimed was taken and sent to her by a resident, but later admitted was taken by her from inside of her home, authorities allege.<\/p>\n
Berkheimer closed the case multiple times, saying The Caring Place is a registered nonprofit in Allentown and does not operate in the Whitehall Township home, but Koren continued to harass the couple and directed tax bills to be sent to their home, officials say.<\/p>\n
Koren’s lawyer issued a statement later Wednesday:<\/p>\n
\u201cMs. Koren is innocent, and she categorically denies that she committed any crime. These allegations mischaracterize Ms. Koren\u2019s good-faith performance of her public duties to collect a $35.00 business license fee on behalf of the township.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commonwealth must prove each element of the offenses charged beyond a reasonable doubt, including the required intent, and the evidence will not support those claims. Ms. Koren did not act to harass anyone, and she did not misuse her office to deprive anyone of any right.”<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause this is pending in court, Ms. Koren will not try the case in the media or comment on specific evidence. She will, however, fully cooperate with the legal process and will vigorously defend herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask the public to reserve judgment until all facts are presented in the proper forum.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — The Whitehall Township treasurer is accused of using her position to harass her neighbors.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232,31],"class_list":["post-160632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}