NJ woman charged with stealing fundraiser money for injured man

💰 A Tinton Falls woman is accused of stealing $15K from a fundraiser she set up

💰 The fundraiser was meant for a Florida man injured in a car accident

💰 The man's mother is an old family friend of the accused

TINTON FALLS — A borough woman has been charged with organizing an online fundraiser for a Florida man severely injured in a car accident last year, and then stealing the more than $15,000 she raised, according to Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago.

Nicole C. Weidelman, 46, of Tinton Falls was charged with third-degree theft by deception.

An investigation revealed that in November 2022 the fundraiser recipient was involved in a serious car accident on I-95 in Florida. The recovery proved to be lengthy and costly, involving more than a dozen surgeries, a month and a half in the hospital, and the loss of an arm that required a prosthetic.

Weidelman contacted the man’s mother, a longtime family friend, according to the police investigation. She offered to set up an online fundraiser to help with the expenses incurred from the medical bills.

The fundraiser raised slightly more than $15,000.

The investigation then revealed that instead of giving the money to the man and his family to pay off those medical bills, Weidelman transferred all of the money into her own personal account in more than two dozen transactions.

She then provided false explanations to the victims over the course of the next several months before the theft was reported to the authorities.

Weidelman was arrested and charged last week.

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