GREENSBURG, Pa. — A mother and daughter are accused of stealing over $4 million in inheritance money from one of their relatives.
According to Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole W. Ziccarelli, Lisa Valesky, 51, and Angela Valesky, 26, were charged with theft and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity.
Police say the money came after the president of the former Greensburg Beverage Distributor died in 2017. An heir told police they did not believe the estate had been settled as of Nov. 2024.
A disbursement hearing was held on December 2, 2022, in front of a Common Pleas Judge. Attorneys representing the heirs and an attorney representing the estate were at this hearing.
Investigators used transcripts of the hearing to learn about a phone call that happened between a woman identifying herself as one of the heirs and the court. That woman said she was set to receive around $4.4 million of the estate. The transcript also showed that a woman identified herself as the heir and gave verbal authorization for the court to release that money to her sister, Lisa Valesky. The court ordered the check to be released to the attorney who was representing Valesky.
Police met with Valesky’s sister who said she had no knowledge of the hearing and never gave authorization to release the inheritance check to that attorney.
Investigators also found a fictitious email made in the sister’s name. The email claimed she would be unable to make the inheritance hearing because she was working out of the country. Instead, the email claimed, Lisa Valeknsky should be designated as the power of attorney.
The heir denied giving Lisa Valesky that power.
Detectives received a search warrant on a KeyBank account in December 2024. The account was opened in Dec. 2022 under Lisa Valesky’s name and her daughter’s name, Angela Valesky. The check from the hearing was deposited into that account at the KeyBank in Greensburg on Dec. 13, 2022.
Over the course of a month, $3.1 million of the check were transferred to different bank accounts. A $1.9 million check was also issued for Lisa Valesky in May 2023.
No documents from the estate were found that ever identified Angela Valesky as a recipient of the inheritance money.
Despite this, a check for $121,747 was issued to a local car dealership for the purchase of a Lincoln Navigator under Angela Valesky’s name in March of 2023. Angela Valesky also purchased a house in Export worth $175,000 in July 2023, public records showed.
As police continued to search public records, police learned Lisa Valesky bought a house in Jeannette in cash for $400,000 in August 2023.
Neither Angela nor Lisa were employed at the time these purchases were made, detectives said.
The woman who reported the concerns about the inheritance to police said she did not have any accounts associated with KeyBank in 2022 and never authorized Angela Valesky to open an account or receive money from the check.
Detectives obtained a search warrant for both houses on Thursday and seized multiple items from both of them. A Lincoln Navigator and house were both also seized.
Both women are being held at the Westmoreland County Jail and were denied bail.
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