The suspect also must report cash expenditures exceeding $2,000 to the prosecutor's office.

The suspect also must report cash expenditures exceeding $2,000 to the prosecutor's office.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- A Howland woman accused of taking more than $1.6 million from her Boardman employer can get out of jail on a $1.5 million bond if it's backed up with real estate holdings and she surrenders her passport.
Deborah Toda, 48, of South Wind Drive, also would be on electronically monitored house arrest and must report any cash expenditures over $2,000 to the Mahoning County prosecutor's office.
Today was arrested Friday at her home, the same day that Boardman police, working with Howland officers, searched her home and seized vehicles and about $200,000 worth of jewelry.
That was the ruling Wednesday morning by Judge David D'Apolito of Mahoning County Court.
Toda is charged with felony theft, accused of taking the money over 21/2 years while employed as an accountant at North Central Pennsylvania Dialysis Clinic, Market Street.
She remained in the Mahoning County jail Wednesday afternoon.
What she's accused of
Boardman Detective Greg Stepuk said that Toda would write monthly checks of up to $50,000. She'd write them in the name of a company with which her employer did business, but she had an account set up under that same name, allowing her to cash them.
The detective said Toda would then alter the clinic's bank statements, possibly using a label maker, to reflect that the money went to other companies with which the clinic did business.
Toda earned about $42,000 annually in her position, and Stepuk said that bank records indicate expenditures of up to $100,000 per month.
Bond request
Toda's attorney, Tom Letson of Warren, requested a reasonable bond at her bond hearing Wednesday before Judge D'Apolito, citing her home and family within the community.
Nicholas Modarelli, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, however, asked that bond be denied or a high bond be set and backed up with real estate.
"She has the financial wherewithal to remove herself from the jurisdiction of this court," he said.
Her passport wasn't seized during the search and Toda hasn't made full restitution on a federal bank fraud conviction, Modarelli said. In that case, she was accused of diverting 13 corporate checks totaling more than $414,000 between 1999 and 2000 from a Niles construction company where she worked as an accountant and bookkeeper.
She pleaded guilty to the bank fraud, and 13 forgery counts were dismissed. She was sentenced in 2001 to 30 months in federal prison, with three years of probation to follow. She remains on federal probation.
Modarelli also cited photographs of trips Toda had taken to London and Paris that police seized in a search last week of her home.
"That prior amount is not accounted for, and it shows a pattern of behavior that we should be concerned about," he said.
Letson said that those trips were six years ago and that international travel isn't illegal. He said they'd surrender her passport.
"In terms of the prior $400,000, we're not here on that," Letson said.
A preliminary hearing on the latest charge is set for Monday.
After the hearing, Stepuk asked that any businesses that sold luxury items to Toda contact police.
Besides the Howland home that Toda and her husband, Paul Pollis, own, the couple also owns an Ianazone's Pizza on East Market Street in Howland, and property in Ashtabula County, officials said.
Purchase agreement
Stepuk said that police found a purchase agreement for the couple to buy the Howland plaza where the pizza shop is located, though they found no record that the property has transferred.
Toda also is a part owner of a Trumbull County hair salon, and Pollis also owns a home in Warren that he consented to police's searching. There they found two Ford Mustangs and a Jaguar.
That's in addition to six vehicles, a motorcycle, a computer, jewelry and a mink coat that police seized while searching the Howland house.
Pollis reported to Howland police that someone took a laptop computer and about $350 in cash from the pizza shop the same day that police searched the house.