Crime & Safety

Woman Left $23 to Pay $32 Restaurant Check, Police Say

Bethlehem woman "swerved" car toward woman trying to get her license plate after she shorted restaurant bill.

This post was reported and written by Jack Tobias.

As court records tell it, the check last month at a Freemansburg restaurant came to $32.09.

But instead of paying the full check at the cash register, the female patron—who works at another eatery—put down $23 at the table and left.

Later, when restaurant employees and others realized what happened, they ran outside to get the license plate number of the minivan the woman was driving. It also turns out her driver’s license was suspended for drunken driving, the records say.

While one woman was yelling the license plate number to another woman, the driver “recklessly swerved the vehicle” toward one of the women, striking her in the hand with the passenger-side mirror and door, the records say.

That was the afternoon of June 19, a Wednesday. On Saturday night, police charged Jill Marie DeRohn, 34, of 1302 Livingston Ave., Bethlehem, with several crimes, including accidents involving death or personal injury while not properly licensed and theft of services.

Borough Patrolman Robert Wieder writes in a criminal complaint that he was dispatched to Spiro’s Restaurant, 710 Washington St., shortly after 4 p.m.

According to the complaint:

  • Wieder learned that DeRohn was accompanied by her stepdaughter. DeRohn was driving a green 2000 Chrysler Town & Country. A woman ran out of the restaurant in search of DeRohn but she had driven off.
  • After the minivan struck one of the other two women trying to get the vehicle’s license plate number, it went north on Livingston Street just over the Bethlehem line and disappeared.
  • But Wieder eventually was able to track down the minivan’s owner—a woman other than DeRohn—who said she did not know that DeRohn had been driving her vehicle and that she did not authorize DeRohn to drive it.
  • When the officer learned that DeRohn was the alleged driver, he also discovered that her driver’s license had been suspended for drunken driving.
  • An information sheet in DeRohn’s court file lists as her place of employment the Valley View Diner on Route 191 in Lower Nazareth Township.
In addition to the charges of accidents involving death or personal injury and theft of services, she was charged with unauthorized use of automobiles and other vehicles, theft by deception, driving while operating privilege is suspended or revoked-DUI related, and reckless driving.

She was arraigned by on-duty District Judge Robert Hawke of Lehigh Township and released on $10,000 unsecured bail.


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