An Albert Lea woman who allegedly stole tens of thousands of dollars from an elderly family member over a period of years pleaded not guilty on Thursday in Freeborn County District Court.

Darlene Mavis Kline, 67, is charged with theft by swindle and financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

Court documents state Kline was charged after a detective with the Albert Lea Police Department and an employee of the Freeborn County Department of Human Services met with the alleged victim on or about March 15 regarding a theft.

The woman, who is legally blind and required assistance with household chores, cooking and moving around dating back to 2013, reported her niece, Kline, had taken at least $39,000 of her money.

Court documents state the alleged victim said she had given Kline her checkbook and asked her to get items for her, and Kline would reportedly write checks when she needed to pay a bill, and have the alleged victim sign the bill. Court documents state the elderly woman had not given Kline permission to write checks to herself.

In a March 17 interview, Kline allegedly admitted she had written checks to herself from the alleged victim’s account.

Court documents state she admitted sending a majority of the money to the “sweepstakes people” — a reported scam. Law enforcement allegedly told her several times the sweepstakes were a scam, and she reportedly advised she could pay the alleged victim back once she received the money back from the sweepstakes.

Kline reportedly admitted taking money to pay her phone bill, cable bill, health insurance, credit card bills and electric bill. She allegedly admitted that some of the bills were signed by the alleged victim, while some were signed by herself.

A subpoena of bank records from the alleged victim’s account reportedly found Kline cashed $48,530 in checks to herself from the elderly woman’s account from August 2014 through March without her permission. In addition, Kline allegedly used the woman’s account to pay $9,371 in bills during the same period. Between March 2013 and August 2014, there were reportedly checks totaling $4,279 from the alleged victim’s account by Kline without her permission.

Court documents state Kline’s account showed there were numerous deposits for large sums of money that coincided with checks written from the alleged victim’s account, as well as several large withdrawals and wire transfers of large sums of money to Jamaica. Between 2013 and 2015, there were reportedly transfers totaling more than $40,000.

A plea hearing is scheduled for Oct. 19.

A photo of Kline was not available as of press time.