An Evansville business owner faces charges of theft and fraud after investigators say she used her position as her elderly adopted mother’s legal representative to pilfer nearly $1 million from her bank accounts over four years to fund purchases ranging from safaris to DoorDash deliveries while her mother’s assisted living bills piled up.
Sarah Ann McFarland, 43, was briefly held at the Vanderburgh County jail before posting bond May 29 following a months-long investigation by the Evansville Police Department into the finances of Dianna Bretz, McFarland’s 80-year-old mother, who has lived in assisted living facilities in Warrick County since 2021.
According to Indiana Secretary of State business records, McFarland is the sole registered agent for Lush Beauty Lounge, an East Side aesthetics business with offerings such as body waxing, laser liposuction and spray tans. In a lengthy probable cause affidavit, EPD Detective Arnold Juncker wrote that in the month before McFarland filed articles of incorporation to open Lush Beauty Lounge in January 2023, she drained tens of thousands of dollars from Bretz’s accounts.
It’s one allegation among many that serve as the basis for two counts of theft and fraud, both Level 6 felonies, the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office filed against McFarland on May 28. McFarland entered a preliminary not-guilty plea at an advisement hearing the day after her arrest and has retained Evansville attorney Barry Blackard to represent her.
Blackard declined to comment on the allegations against McFarland or how she planned to approach the case.
‘Completely out of line’
The investigation traces back nearly a year to July 2025, when the Warrick County Sheriff’s Office received a fraud report and forwarded it to Evansville police based on McFarland’s address being located in the city. Bretz, who was living at the assisted living facility Heritage Woods of Newburgh at the time, had reported that large sums were being spent from her Fifth Third Bank account without her knowledge, according to Juncker’s affidavit.
Juncker wrote that McFarland had been named Bretz’s agent in a power of attorney agreement beginning in September 2021 — a decision the affidavit says was prompted by the declining health of Bretz’s husband, who had developed dementia and died in 2022. Bretz is McFarland’s biological grandmother, but according to Juncker, she adopted McFarland and raised her as her own daughter.
The financial fallout from the power of attorney arrangement, according to the affidavit, was immediate and dramatic. In the year before McFarland was made her mother’s agent, average monthly spending on Bretz’s Fifth Third Bank account was $2,938.61. Within four days of McFarland gaining access, $44,451.04 was transferred to an account in McFarland’s name, police allege. By the end of the first month, the account had been drained to just over $100.
Over the following four months, the only money flowing into Bretz’s account was her $739 monthly Social Security payment. Each month, Juncker wrote, McFarland removed it and left the balance at $100. Bretz also received regular deposits from Edward Jones investments, sometimes exceeding $30,000 a month. Those funds were allegedly siphoned off as well.
By Juncker’s calculation, the total amount spent from Bretz’s accounts during the roughly four-year span when McFarland acted as her agent was $916,664.41.
The affidavit describes the spending as “egregious and completely out of line” with the scope of McFarland’s rights and responsibilities as her mother’s legal representative. Among the purchases Juncker identified in the financial records: lion safaris and boat rentals in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; thousands of dollars in department store purchases; monthly payments to Honda and Kawasaki; and thousands more in food and DoorDash deliveries.
Juncker noted that in the month before McFarland and her husband opened Lush Beauty Lounge, $47,129.41 was spent or transferred out of Bretz’s account. The affidavit does not allege that any of those funds went directly toward the business, but Juncker included the detail as part of his broader accounting of the alleged misuse.
McFarland removed from power of attorney
Meanwhile, Bretz’s bills at her assisted living facility went unpaid, leaving her roughly $19,000 in arrears, the affidavit states. At one point, Bretz was denied a visit from a doctor because of outstanding bills. Her sister, Norma Vanover, told a detective she had to pay those bills herself so the doctor would come. McFarland also allegedly dropped Bretz’s supplemental insurance coverage, which had been provided through her late husband’s employer. Vanover had to make back payments to restore it.
Juncker wrote that when he asked Bretz whether McFarland had ever brought her food, clothing or other necessities during her stays at the assisted living facilities, she said no — that her sister had to bring her slippers and clothes. McFarland, Bretz told the detective, had visited her fewer than five times across both facilities and did not call or visit after Bretz suffered a medical emergency at Heritage Woods.
The investigation was aided by Fifth Third Bank, which had opened its own internal elder abuse case against McFarland and cooperated with EPD. According to the affidavit, McFarland told the bank by email that the power of attorney was hers to administer and that she could spend as she saw fit “to better herself as well.”
McFarland has since been removed from her mother’s power of attorney agreement. Vanover and her son now oversee Bretz’s estate, according to police.
A review hearing is scheduled for July 22 before Vanderburgh Superior Court Judge Robert J. Pigman.
Houston Harwood may be contacted at houston.harwood@courierpress.com
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville business owner charged with defrauding elderly mother
Reporting by Houston Harwood, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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