By Matt Snyder
REYNOLDS — A young woman stood in sentence court Friday morning and gave her mother a piece of her mind. Her mother had stolen the young woman’s identity and ruined her credit, endangering her student loans, she said.
Her mother, Wendy K. Wheeler, 41, of 2 Maple Drive, Reynolds, pleaded guilty Oct. 6 to theft by deception for using her daughter’s identity to pay bills.
Mrs. Wheeler said she had run low on options. Her husband, Roger L. Wheeler, 41, formerly of 206 Hadley Road, Hempfield Township, in April was sent to jail for 8è to 25 years because he had sexually assaulted his daughters from the time they were 6 years old.
Mrs. Wheeler told Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas R. Dobson she hadn’t expected her husband to receive that jail term and was left with no way to pay bills, buy food, or provide for her autistic 12-year-old son. She said she had planned to repay her daughter.
Her daughter said she is a full-time college student working two jobs and is now swamped in debt and bad credit. The expenditures her mother made endangered her student loans and bar her from taking out more for now. She also can’t make normal purchases, like a car.
She also accused her mother of taking part in years of physical and emotional abuse, along with Wheeler. The young woman first came forward with Wheeler’s crimes in 2004, but he and her mother claimed she made them up. During his sentencing for those crimes last spring, she told Dobson her father’s assaults had torn apart the family and ruined her relationship with her mother.
“Your honor, I love my daughter with all my heart,” Mrs. Wheeler told Dobson on Friday. She said she is hurt because the court bars her from contacting her daughters, even on their birthdays.
“It’s your fault,” Dobson responded, reminding her that the court forbids contact because when her daughter had accused her husband of abusing her, Mrs. Wheeler had sided with him. For the theft, Dobson ordered Mrs. Wheeler to pay restitution and sentenced her to 45 days to a year and a half in jail, followed by 6 months’ probation. Mrs. Wheeler’s daughter, who has said she has little contact with her family anymore, had one more thing to say to her mother: “I will get my college education and will go on to make something of myself.”
