Embezzlement

A Columbia woman found guilty a second time of embezzling from an employer received an unusually long 15-year prison sentence Friday in Howard County Circuit Court. Tiffany Powers, 38, spent 18 months in prison after a 2002 conviction for stealing $320,000 from a previous employer, much more than the $28,500 she was convicted in April of stealing from Clarksville chiropractor Vaughn Dabbs. But Circuit Judge Richard S. Bernhardt had no sympathy for her, despite sentencing guidelines that called for three months to two years in jail, and despite her having repaid Dabbs $6,000 of what she took over a six-month period in 2008.

The purloined gift cards. The fur coats. The bicycling tours of the city with staffers.  And, of course, the famous shoe incident. Former mayor Sheila Dixon's tenure in City Hall is ripe with material for comedians.  On Thursday, seven comics and local media personalities will be poking fun of  Dixon -- to her face-- at a "Roast and Toast" at the Baltimore Comedy Factory. Why would Dixon, who resigned in 2010 as part of a plea deal to settle criminal charges, agree to a such a thing?

The former Havre de Grace postmaster is awaiting trial on charges that he stole almost $60,000 in money orders from the Havre de Grace post office, federal officials said yesterday.John J. Vitak, 53, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court Nov. 19 to face trial on one count of embezzlement of postal money orders. Stephen Schenning, first assistant in the United State's Attorney's office, said Vitak is accused of having stolen numerous money orders totaling $58,616 from January 1996 to August 1998.

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the final member of a family business that was used to cheat the National Security Agency out of nearly $1.5 million, prosecutors said. Christina Turley Knott, 51, of Edgewater, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for wire fraud stemming from fraudulently billing the NSA and for failing to state her full income on tax returns, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced in a statement Thursday. From at least 2003 until she was fired in 2005, Knott kept the financial books for an Upper Marlboro sheet metal business that her father and brother ran, called Bechdon Co., which made metal and plastic parts for the NSA. Knott, her father and brother — William Turley, 71, of Annapolis and Donald Turley, 54, of Owings, in Calvert County, respectively — filed invoices with the NSA based on an inflated number of billable hours worked for the agency, prosecutors said.

Two women devised a sophisticated computer scheme involving hundreds of bogus medical claims and embezzled almost $1.5 million from the health fund of the Baltimore-area Ironworkers union, a lawsuit filed yesterday alleges.The alleged theft was carried out by a pair who worked in the union's benefits office and who over a span of five years wrote 280 checks to themselves, according to the lawsuit.The alleged embezzlement was discovered after an independent firm, Weaver Associates, took over administration of the health fund in November and found it could not reconcile payments and medical services provided.

The owner of a now-defunct printing company pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of conspiring with the former comptroller of a Baltimore-based maritime union in an embezzlement scheme that cost the union more than $376,000.Mercury Graphics Inc. owner Ronald Schoop, 60, could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and be fined $250,000 for conspiring with Harry Seidman, 64, former comptroller of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, to misappropriate the union money.

Baltimore-area developer John W. Shilling Jr. has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of bank embezzlement tied to the alleged theft of $534,207 from four limited partnerships linked to the failed First Federal Savings Bank of Annapolis.Shilling, 49, of Reisterstown, entered the plea yesterday to Judge Frederic N. Smalkin in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Smalkin set a March 2 trial date.Shilling was charged last month in a one-count criminal information document.The charging document said Shilling, owner of Crown Development Corp.

The former assistant controller of the state medical society has been charged with embezzling more than a half-million dollars from the organization over a six-year period.Phillip H. Moore, 49, of Lansdowne is charged with stealing $552,816.71 from the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland between 1987 and 1993, prosecutors said yesterday. He is to be arraigned April 10 in Baltimore Circuit Court on one count of felony theft.Mr. Moore is accused of taking the money by writing fraudulent checks on organization accounts, said Gary Honick, a prosecutor in the economic crimes unit of the Baltimore state's attorney's office.

A Crofton woman was sentenced yesterday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court to 18 months on work-release for embezzling at least $13,500 from the town's PTA and athletic council.Susan Haller, 32, former treasurer of the Crofton Meadows PTA and registrar of the Crofton Athletic Council, pleaded guilty yesterday to taking at least $10,000 from the council. Prosecutors said Haller has arranged to make an $800 payment toward that debt, and $400 a month until the debt is paid off.She also pleaded guilty Oct. 26 to taking $3,500 from the elementary school's PTA.Haller, of the 2000 block of Cambridge Drive, is a former free-lance community correspondent for The Sun.

A former treasurer for a railroad workers union will spend six months in prison and six months on home confinement after pleading guilty to embezzling $45,000 from the organization, a federal judge ruled yesterday in Baltimore. From 1999 through 2004, Walter Fisher served as the secretary-treasurer of the United Transportation Union Local 1949. The union local had about 250 members during that time who were yard masters with CSX, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, and Conrail in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

How interesting to read that Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's challengers are actually seeking advice from Sheila Dixon, a disgraced mayor who was charged with perjury, theft, fraudulent misappropriation and misconduct, and ultimately convicted of embezzlement ("Dixon at work behind the scenes," July 13). The Sun deserves thanks for making the next Baltimore mayoral election a no-brainer. Katherine Ambrose, Kingsville

A 41-year-old Brunswick woman was sentenced Monday to 30 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit her retirement fund along with her residence for wire fraud in connection with the $777,000 she embezzled from her employer over a seven-year period, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. According to court records, Kymberli Michelle Rand controlled the finances at the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation since 2002. But this spring, council officials learned she had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2003, using the money to pay her American Express bill.

A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered a Reisterstown man to serve a five-year prison term that was suspended nearly 20 years ago, the Maryland Attorney General's Office announced. Roy H. Adler, 52, was convicted in 1991 of embezzling more than $4 million from his employer and Blue Cross/Blue Shield while working as an accountant. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with half of it suspended, and ordered to pay $3.2 million restitution. But Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lynn K. Stewart on Monday ordered him to complete the remainder after finding that he'd stopped paying the money he owed more than two years ago. Adler, who has admitted a gambling problem, is scheduled to stand trial in February on another case alleging he wrote several bad checks.

Five weeks after the Baltimore Mariners claimed their first American Indoor Football Association championship, the future of the team appears in limbo after its entire front office resigned Friday amid allegations that a member of its ownership group embezzled $1.6 million from a Laurel mechanical engineering firm. Dwayne Wells, 50, was charged with wire fraud for allegedly embezzling the money from his firm, Ryco Associates, then using $109,500 of it to purchase a stake in the Mariners, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

A Columbia woman found guilty a second time of embezzling from an employer received an unusually long 15-year prison sentence Friday in Howard County Circuit Court. Tiffany Powers, 38, spent 18 months in prison after a 2002 conviction for stealing $320,000 from a previous employer, much more than the $28,500 she was convicted in April of stealing from Clarksville chiropractor Vaughn Dabbs. But Circuit Judge Richard S. Bernhardt had no sympathy for her, despite sentencing guidelines that called for three months to two years in jail, and despite her having repaid Dabbs $6,000 of what she took over a six-month period in 2008.

A 40-year-old former Baltimore police detective assigned to a federal drug task force was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison Thursday for lying to colleagues, embezzling confidential-informant funds and pocketing jewelry from suspects, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. In April, Mark. J. Lunsford admitted to splitting $10,000 in law enforcement funds with a supposed source, whose work he regularly lied about to fraudulently obtain cash payments and to swiping an $18,000 diamond watch while raiding an alleged drug house and filing false investigative reports.