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.

Does John Leopold have Sheila Dixon to blame? He'll have plenty of time — 30 days to be specific — to contemplate such a cosmic question, as the former Anne Arundel County executive serves out the surprise prison sentence he received Thursday for misconduct in office. The not-quite-hanging judge who found him guilty on two counts of misconduct and ordered him locked up was Dennis Sweeney, who in 2009 presided over the trial of another public official gone wrong: former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.

A former vice president of Hebron Savings Bank in Wicomico County was sentenced to 18 months in prison for embezzlement and ordered to pay $456,665 in restitution, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Wanda Henderson, 56, of Westover had used her position at the bank, including her role as executive assistant to president, to manipulate bank records and receive fraudulent loans over a period from 2005 until April 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Over that time, Henderson had secured 20 fraudulent loans for herself and family members worth more than $680,000, with most of that ending in default, prosecutors said.

A former vice president of Hebron Savings Bank in Wicomico County was sentenced to 18 months in prison for embezzlement and ordered to pay $456,665 in restitution, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Wanda Henderson, 56, of Westover had used her position at the bank, including her role as executive assistant to president, to manipulate bank records and receive fraudulent loans over a period from 2005 until April 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Over that time, Henderson had secured 20 fraudulent loans for herself and family members worth more than $680,000, with most of that ending in default, prosecutors said.

The head of Wings to Go, a Buffalo wings franchise restaurant company based in Severna Park that has outlets in 12 states and Washington, was indicted Tuesday for embezzling $885,000 from the company — money that he allegedly used to pay for telephone sex and prostitutes, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore. Mark Chandler Goodnow, 55, of Pasadena, faces one count of wire fraud for writing hundreds of corporate checks from 2006 to 20011 to pay three Texas women for phone sex, as well as personal expenses for one of the women, the indictment alleges.

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 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.

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.

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 Maryland woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to embezzling more than $143,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she worked as a human resources analyst, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Sheila Ann Howard, 56, of Capitol Heights in Prince George's County, began working for FEMA — which responds to disasters across the country such as the recent devastation from superstorm Sandy — as a disaster assistant in 1986, and later served as a staffing clerk and personal assistant, among other positions, prosecutors said.

The former president and CEO of Wings to Go, a fast food franchise headquartered in Severna Park, was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for embezzling more than $885,000 from the company to pay for telephone sex and prostitutes over a six-year period, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's office. Mark Chandler Goodnow, 56, of Pasadena, must also pay restitution for the money he stole from the company to pay prostitutes in Maryland and to cover the personal expenses and phone sex fees of three Texas women, prosecutors said.

The president and chief executive of Wings to Go, a fast food franchise headquartered in Severna Park, pleaded guilty to wire fraud Monday for embezzling $885,000 from the company to pay for telephone sex and prostitutes over a six-year period, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. From 2006 through this year, Mark Chandler Goodnow, 55, claimed to have spent nearly $832,000 on business advertising, but the money really went to three phone sex operators in Texas to pay their fees and personal expenses, according to his plea agreement.

The former CEO of Severna Park-based Wings to Go pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud for embezzling more than $885,000 from the franchise company to pay for prostitutes and phone sex, the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore announced. Mark Chandler Goodnow, 55, of Pasadena, former president and CEO of the Buffalo wings franchise company, spent about $885,071 of the company's money to hire prostitutes in Maryland and to pay three women in Texas for phone sex and personal expenses, according to his plea agreement.

A 55-year-old Pasadena man was indicted and charged with wire fraud Tuesday for allegedly embezzling more than $885,000 from the fast food franchise for which he served as president and chief executive officer in order to pay for phone sex and prostitutes, according to prosecutors. Mark Chandler Goodnow, who until recently was CEO of Severna Park-based Wings To Go, allegedly diverted funds from the company to pay three Texas women for phone sex, pay the personal expenses of one of those women, and to pay prostitutes in Maryland, according to the indictment.

The head of Wings to Go, a Buffalo wings franchise restaurant company based in Severna Park that has outlets in 12 states and Washington, was indicted Tuesday for embezzling $885,000 from the company — money that he allegedly used to pay for telephone sex and prostitutes, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore. Mark Chandler Goodnow, 55, of Pasadena, faces one count of wire fraud for writing hundreds of corporate checks from 2006 to 20011 to pay three Texas women for phone sex, as well as personal expenses for one of the women, the indictment alleges.

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?

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.