No charges have been filed yet against a 42-year-old Federal Way woman regarding the disappearance of nearly $34,000 from three local sports organizations.

Federal Way Police forwarded a determination of probable cause to the Prosecutor’s Office April 20 with a recommendation to charge the woman with theft in the first-degree after unauthorized checks were written from accounts connected with the Puget Sound Junior Football Association, the Federal Way Hawks Junior Football Association and Federal Way American Little Leagues, according to documents.

“It looks like it is still under investigation,” said Dan Danahoe, the spokesman for the King County Prosecutor’s Office. “Sometimes in theft crimes, they want to do some more investigation. I’m not sure how much longer it will be.”

According to Federal Way Police, the delay in charges being filed against the woman stems from the Prosecutor’s Office wanting detailed bank records of the accounts in question. The suspect is not being named until charges are filed.

“The Prosecutor requested the detective get a volume of records from a bank and that took a long time,” said Federal Way spokesman Cathy Schrock. “So we sent over a ream and half (750 sheets of paper) of bank records earlier this week. But we got everything we needed and the detective sent it to the Prosecutor’s Office.”

According to police, the woman was a treasurer of all three organizations at different points and had access to their bank accounts.

The Federal Way Hawks football program appears to be the hardest hit. According to the police investigation, the Hawks lost a total of $17,837.45 from unauthorized checks signed by the woman. The Puget Sound Junior Football Association, which consists of six franchises in South King County, reported $9,241.72 in suspicious checks and Federal Way American’s total loss is $6,888.03 for a grand total of $33,967.20.

According to documents, the woman did admit during an April 15 interview at the Federal Way Police Department to writing a $4,000 check from the Federal Way Hawks account, and two checks from Puget Sound Junior Football Association and Federal Way American for $3,000 each.

“(The woman) stated she took the money to get her home out of foreclosure,” police documents said. “She adamantly denied taking more than the $10,000 she admitted to taking for her mortgage. Her house was in foreclosure and (the woman) said she used the $10,000 to get her mortgage up to date.”

The admission came after she initially denied any knowledge of missing money or writing unauthorized checks, police said.

According to police documents, Federal Way police became involved in the investigation Feb. 23 when Klaus Nalley, the commissioner of the Puget Sound Junior Football League, informed him that he found suspicious activity in the league’s checkbook, and that the woman was the only person who had access to the checks in the league’s accounts.

In the state of Washington, first-degree theft states that the item or services stolen must be worth more than $1,500. First-degree theft is considered a Class B felony and, if convicted, the maximum sentence is 10 years in jail and/or a $20,000 fine.