Former Playland Skating Director Indicted

The Westchester County District Attorney's office has indicted an ex-employee of the Playland Ice Casino for allegedly stealing $9,218 from the ice rink while employed there.

Port Chester native Kristen Vangsness, 40, has been charged with grand larceny in the third degree—a class D felony and seven counts of falsifying business records in the first degree—all class E felonies.

The district attorney's office believes that while serving as the skating director of the Ice Casino, located in Rye Playland, Vangsness stole the money by failing to deposit cash payments for her skating lessons. The money was allegedly taken during a two-year period from Jan. 2008 to Jan. 2010.

"The brazen nature of the alleged thefts carried out by this defendant, a public employee, is disappointing," District Attorney Janet DiFiore said in a press release. "When someone remits cash for a service or product, they should be confident that the money is paying for that service or product and not going directly into the pocket of an individual, who in this particular case had been defrauding the people of Westchester County."

The Playland Ice Casino is home to several ice rinks that hosts, among other things, the Rye Town/Harrison Titans hockey team.

The Westchester County Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation and made the arrest. Vangsness will be arraigned on Oct. 15, and be prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Berit Hayes Huseby, according to the district attorney's office.

If convicted Vangsness faces a maximum of two and a half to seven years in state prison.