EBENSBURG —
Cambria County’s former first deputy controller pleaded no contest Monday to theft and fraud charges in a scheme that was designed to increase her pension benefits when she retired in 2010.
Antoinette Sherry was placed on probation for two years by Judge Timothy Creany and ordered to pay $13,051 restitution – most of it for the $9,768 she was to have paid to “buy back” six years of service time for her pension.
Sherry will forfeit the health-care benefits to which she normally would have been entitled as a retiree but will be allowed to collect her pension without the increased amount, the judge said.
By entering a no-contest plea, Sherry does not admit her guilt, but will have a criminal record, it was brought out.
Defense attorney Kevin Persio, noting that Sherry has no prior criminal record, told the judge, “There was no intent (to commit a crime). There were some circumstances in her life. She acknowledges that she made a mistake.”
He did not elaborate on the circumstances.
Sherry said only, “I would not intentionally do something like that. I want to get it over with.”
The defense had sought to have Sherry placed on the accelerated rehabilitative disposition program for first-time offenders. Under that program, her criminal record would have been wiped clean upon success completion of probation.
But the district attorney’s office rejected the ARD program for her because of “the level of trust she was in by overseeing the pension payments.”
“She was someone very close to us (in the court- house). She was the person who almost had the final say on an employee’s retirement,” Heath Long, first assistant district attorney, said.
Prosecutors did lower the grading of the charges to misdemeanor offenses so that Sherry could continue to collect her regular pension, Long said.
The plea details have been reviewed and accepted by the commissioners and county Solicitor Thomas Leiden, Long said.
In addition to the restitution, Sherry was directed to pay $200 in fines and some court costs. Persio said that she was prepared to pay immediately the $13,051 restitution. He said that she had been ready to hand over a check for some months but that had been refused before Monday by prosecutors and the county.
Sherry, 56, of the 1100 block of Theatre Road, Carrolltown, retired in 2010. She had been employed by the county for more than 30 years in the controller’s office and was named first deputy in 2000.
The discrepancy was discovered last year. Controller Ed Cernic Jr. said that a review of county pensions turned up no similar thefts.
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