Bucks Woman Stole From Cancer Patient, Gave To Inmate Boyfriend

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP, PA — A Bucks County woman will spend time behind bars after being sentenced Thursday for stealing from a cancer patient she was hired to help.

Kelly Nichole Sharkey, 30, of Bristol, pleaded guilty in September and was sentenced Thursday by Common Pleas Judge Diane Gibbons to between one year, minus a day, to two years, minus a day, in county jail.

That sentence also will cover guilty pleas in five separate cases, from 2017 through last year, that included driving under the influence, theft, harassment and drug charges.

Sharkey also was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $17,421.19 to her victim — a cancer survivor who'd had surgery to remove part of her tongue.

The victim, who was a friend of Sharkey's grandmother, said in court that the theft made it hard for her to trust anyone again. She reported the crime to Bristol Township Police on Nov. 26, 2019, after noticing several unauthorized transactions.

She had hired Sharkey in late May or early June of that year because her surgery made it hard for her to speak and run errands. She gave Sharkey her debit card and credit card to make household purchases.

Investigators found that Sharkey made 50 unauthorized transactions, for $3,720, on the victim's credit card from June to December 2019 and $13,701.19 on her debit card from June to November of that year.

Some of the credit card transactions were to put money in the Bucks County Correctional Facility inmate account of the father of Sharkey's child. The victim discovered the transactions the week before Thanksgiving 2019 and confronted Sharkey, who denied making them.

Bristol Township Police Detective William O'Keefe got records from the victim's banks and watched surveillance footage from two Wawa locations and a tobacco shop, which showed Sharkey making the transactions.

Sharkey also was given concurrent sentences in five other cases Thursday. She pleaded guilty to:

• Retail theft and drug charges for an October 2017 arrest at a Walmart in Tullytown
• Harassment related to a September 2020 child-custody case
• Driving under the influence for a Bensalem arrest in May 2020
• Retail theft and two counts of possessing drug paraphernalia for a May 2020 arrest at a CVS in Bristol Township
• Retail theft for a June 2020 arrest at a Wawa in Bristol Township