DATE: 05-12-2017
A Floyd County woman was indicted by a Pike grand jury this week on charges that she stole more than $15,000 worth of Girl Scout cookies.
According to Pike Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Bartley, Leah Ann Vick, 26, of North River Road, Auxier, who was a troop leader for the Wilderness Road Chapter of the Girl Scouts, is responsible for a theft of cookies of a value of more than $15,000. Vick was indicted on a charge of felony theft by unlawful taking (over $10,000 but under $1,000,000).
Bartley said Kentucky State Police Trooper John Gabbard received a complaint from the Wilderness Road chapter about the theft of the cookies.
“Vick came down (to Pikeville) and picked up somewhere around approximately $15,000 worth of Girl Scout cookies to be taken to be sold,” said Bartley. “From Gabbard’s investigation, she never paid for those cookies.”
According to the indictment, Vick picked up the load of cookies of Feb. 1.
Bartley said the cookies are picked up by leaders and given to the Girl Scouts. When the troops sell the cookies, the groups then pay the bill since the groups do not have the money to pay up front.
“She has never paid for any of them and, anyone who has tried to contact her about them, has not been able to contact her,” said Bartley. “The case was a little confusing because she may have picked up cookies for other groups. The ones that she did pick up, at least for her own troop, were never sold by the troop. She picked up the cookies and never took them to them, so we don’t know what she did with them.”
Vick has several different addresses, including addresses in Auxier and Martin, as well as two different addresses in Knott County which has prevented Gabbard from locating her.
“This trooper (Gabbard) has tried to look for her. He is familiar with the areas, but the people he has talked to, have been unable to give her whereabouts,” said Bartley. “It looks like she picked up the cookies and, now, she and the cookies have disappeared.”
By Chase Ellis
Appalachian News-Express
