Couple to head to trial in alleged theft of unemployment benefits
A Fayette County judge said Friday he would sign a continuance of a Uniontown woman’s theft trial after the woman and her husband had a jury seated to try a different theft case in which they are both charged.
Through her attorney, Mark Mehalov, Lisa Nypaver, 42, sought a two-month delay in a case where she is charged with stealing nearly $6,000 from her former employer in 2010 by forging checks to herself and using a company credit card to buy an iPod and pay a $900 phone bill.
Judge John F. Wagner said he would sign the continuance when the trial for Nypaver and her husband, Myron, 46, starts Monday. The Uniontown couple is charged with allegedly taking $20,000 in workers compensation that they allegedly continued getting once Myron Nypaver had returned to work as Uniontown’s fire chief.
Both were charged with theft by deception and insurance fraud, though a judge determined that the latter charge should be dismissed because the law under which the fraud count was filed did not deal with unemployment compensation.
Myron Nypaver was collecting the unemployment compensation after he was furloughed between December 2009 and March 2010. After he was brought back to work in March, and until November 2010, authorities allege that the couple continued to collect the compensation while Myron Nypaver was being paid weekly wages of $1,086.
After the charges were filed, Uniontown City Council voted to terminate Myron Nypaver.