{"id":254240,"date":"2026-07-29T01:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T01:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254240\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T01:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T01:50:24","slug":"former-pittsburgh-mercy-employee-convicted-in-tickets-for-kids-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254240\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Pittsburgh Mercy employee convicted in Tickets for Kids fraud scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Pittsburgh Mercy employee convicted in Tickets for Kids fraud scheme<\/p>\n

\"CaitlynPennsylvania \u2014<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Attorney General announced a guilty verdict in a scam involving tickets meant for local at-risk children. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, a judge convicted Ramona Wilkes, 65, of corrupt organizations, criminal conspiracy, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, deceptive business practices, and criminal use of a communication facility. All are felonies. <\/p>\n

Wilkes was sentenced to five years’ probation, with the first year on house arrest, and is ordered to pay $57,346.65 in restitution to Pittsburgh-based charity, Tickets for Kids.<\/p>\n

Officials said Wilkes used her position as an employee with the nonprofit organization Pittsburgh Mercy to obtain tickets from Tickets for Kids. <\/p>\n

The tickets were intended to be given to children served by Pittsburgh Mercy, but instead, Wilkes kept the tickets for herself and her co-conspirators to resell for profit or use personally.<\/p>\n

\u201cTickets for Kids exists to create opportunities for children who otherwise might never experience a concert, sporting event or other special outing. Instead of helping fulfill that mission, this defendant exploited it for personal gain,\u201d Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a release. \u201cThis verdict holds her accountable, and the restitution ordered will help the charity continue serving the children who need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Pittsburgh Mercy employee convicted in Tickets for Kids fraud scheme Pennsylvania \u2014 The Pennsylvania Attorney General announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28,8526,73,75,108427,74,108428],"class_list":["post-254240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-attorney-general-dave-sunday","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-mercy","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-tickets-for-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254240","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=254240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}