{"id":10266,"date":"2025-10-02T18:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=10266"},"modified":"2025-10-03T15:11:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T19:11:53","slug":"paralegal-charged-with-stealing-75k-from-client-at-toms-river-law-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2025\/10\/paralegal-charged-with-stealing-75k-from-client-at-toms-river-law-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralegal Charged With Stealing $75K From Client at Toms River Law Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_180\" style=\"width: 839px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"Handcuffs (Shorebeat File Photo\/ banspy\/ Flickr)\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"Handcuffs (Shorebeat File Photo\/ banspy\/ Flickr)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-180\" class=\"size-full wp-image-180\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM.png\" alt=\"Handcuffs (Shorebeat File Photo\/ banspy\/ Flickr)\" width=\"829\" height=\"618\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM.png 829w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-300x224.png 300w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-768x573.png 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-563x420.png 563w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-80x60.png 80w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-100x75.png 100w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-180x135.png 180w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-238x178.png 238w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-640x477.png 640w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM-681x508.png 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 829px) 100vw, 829px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-180\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Handcuffs (Shorebeat File Photo\/ banspy\/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A 58-year-old Bayville woman who was employed as a paralegal at a local law firm has been charged with stealing from a person for whom she had power of attorney.<\/p>\n<p>Marie Dibella, 58, of Bayville, was charged with theft by unlawful taking in connection with a series of incidents that occurred between January 2023 and August 2024, prosecutors said in a statement issued Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>An investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office Economic Crime Squad, commencing in August 2024, revealed that Dibella was employed as a paralegal at a local law firm in Toms River. In her capacity as a paralegal at the law firm, Dibella gained access to the victim\u2019s financial and personal information. Further investigation revealed that between January 2023 through August 2024, Dibella diverted money belonging to the victim for her own personal use by writing checks to herself, to cash, and to family members \u2013 exceeding $75,000, the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Dibella was charged Sept. 26, 2025. On Tuesday, Dibella surrendered herself to Berkeley Township Police Headquarters; she was transported to the Ocean County Jail and subsequently released pending future appearances in Ocean County Superior Court. No photos of Dibella were available.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2025\/10\/paralegal-charged-with-stealing-75k-from-client-at-toms-river-law-firm\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 58-year-old Bayville woman who was employed as a paralegal at a local law firm has been charged with stealing from a person for whom she had power of attorney. Marie Dibella, 58, of Bayville, was charged with theft by unlawful taking in connection with a series of incidents that occurred between January 2023 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1080,2071,19,11],"class_list":["post-10266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-featured","tag-marie-dibella","tag-theft","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10266"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10270,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10266\/revisions\/10270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}