A hearing to determine if a Grand Island woman is fit to stand trial has been moved up to Friday.
Originally scheduled for January 21, the competency hearing for 47-year-old Kelli Lepler was rescheduled after her attorney requested an evaluation last week. The request was made to Judge Andrew Butler, who ordered a psychiatrist from the Lincoln Regional Center to assess Lepler at the Hall County Jail.
Lepler faces a long list of charges—46 counts of theft by deception. Out of these, 38 are felony charges, while the rest are misdemeanors. She has entered a not-guilty plea for all of them.
The accusations against Lepler are serious. Authorities allege she took money from customers through her company, Monument Advisors, but never delivered on her promises to provide headstones. According to court documents, this alleged fraud happened between January 2020 and February 2023, with police estimating the total losses for her victims to be over $200,000.
Prosecutors filed charges against Lepler in 2023, and she was later arrested in Missouri that same year.
In November, Lepler’s request to have the trial moved out of Hall County was denied by the judge, meaning the case will proceed as planned in the local court.
The hearing on Friday will now focus on whether she is mentally competent to face trial for these charges.
