MERCERTWP — Bingo?

More like bunco, say authorities.

Accused in the alleged scam that played out last week in a Mercer Township church is a 54-year-old bingo player, armed only with a dauber and eyeing the night's big prize.

State police on Tuesday charged Charlene Kriebel of Grove City with falsely attempting to claim the $500 bingo jackpot that, it turned out, she hadn't actually won.

Kriebel was playing bingo the night of July 13 at St. Anthony's Church in Forestville when, police allege, she put her scheme in motion.

She artfully cut out a square marked with the I-24 from one bingo card and placed it on top of I-21 on another card she was playing.

"(Kriebel) dabbed it with a dabber so it would stick,"according to court documents. Later, right after B-13 was called, the woman and three others cried out "Bingo."

It appeared Kriebel was in line to split the pot four ways.

The scam might have worked, if not for Debbie Vincent, a volunteer for the bingo night that benefits St. Anthony's.

While Vincent prepared to call back the defendant's numbers, she noticed the I-24 was a darker red ink than the rest of the numbers on Kriebel's card.

Vincent rubbed her fingernail over I-24; the phony square came off, exposing I-21. Documents described the square that Kriebel cut as "perfect."

The scam had unraveled, police said, leaving the jackpot to be divided among the three genuine winners.

Kriebel, meanwhile, later apologized before she was asked to leave the building.

"The defendant told (Vincent)," a police affidavit said, "that she was having hard times and money was tight."

Kriebel is charged with attempted theft by deception, a first-degree misdemeanor. She faces a preliminary hearing Oct. 16 before District Judge Clifford Woessner. The Eagle could not reach Kriebel for comment Wednesday.