{"id":271450,"date":"2026-08-24T20:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271450\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:52:09","slug":"lower-merion-school-board-member-charged-with-theft-from-bala-cynwyd-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/271450\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Merion school board member charged with theft from Bala Cynwyd company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/rivera-jennifer-mugshot.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"432\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-v-653d32e2=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-653d32e2=\"\">Jennifer Rivera, 41 (Montgomery County District Attorney&#8217;s Office)\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">NORRISTOWN, Pa. &#8211; A member of the Lower Merion School Board has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies after authorities say she stole more than $50,000 from her former employer in Bala Cynwyd.<\/p>\n<p>   Business expenses flagged as personal spending at Bala Cynwyd company <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTXF\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">Timeline:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Jennifer Rivera\u2019s former employer, SMB, reported her to Lower Merion Police in June 2026 after a financial review uncovered unusual charges to a company credit card and business Amazon account stretching back to September 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The CEO and Senior Finance Director told investigators that Rivera, 41, used company funds for personal expenses, including $1,339 for Bar Mitzvah videography and photography, more than $25,000 for a family and friends\u2019 vacation, and $25,596.68 on Amazon purchases such as clothing and bathroom accessories, investigators said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Detectives said the total amount Rivera is accused of taking is $50,243.31.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The audit also showed she booked a future Bahamas trip for her family using company American Express reward points estimated at more than $9,000, which investigators say was unauthorized. Rivera turned herself in to Lower Merion Police on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTXF\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Rivera was arraigned and bail was set at $25,000 unsecured and ordered her to have no contact with anyone at SMB. She faces four counts of Theft by Deception, Receiving Stolen Property and Access Device Fraud, all third-degree felonies, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Sept. 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information from the Montgomery Couny District Attorney&#8217;s Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox29.com\/tag\/us\/pa\/montgomery-county\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Montgomery County<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox29.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime &amp; Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Jennifer Rivera, 41 (Montgomery County District Attorney&#8217;s Office)\u00a0 NORRISTOWN, Pa. &#8211; A member of the Lower Merion&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[592,183,185,184,186,200,139,539,593],"class_list":["post-271450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-montgomery-county","tag-news","tag-pa","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271450","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=271450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}