Police widows pack sentencing of widow who looted charity

NEW YORK — Widows of cops killed within the road of responsibility packed a court Tuesday for the sentencing of a fellow widow who they are saying execrable their charity’s reputation by stealing $400,000.

Several widows told U.S. District Decide up Sidney Stein in regards to the wound accomplished by Lorraine Shanley sooner than he sentenced the 69-year-frail widow to two years in penal complex for stealing from the Survivors of the Defend charity, formed in 1988 to reduction surviving spouses and their youth.

Shanley pleaded guilty in September to bank and tax fraud, admitting to defrauding the charity from 2012 to 2017 of $400,000, more than 20% of the donations bought for the interval of the interval of time. A defense attorney acknowledged about $290,000 might maybe maybe maybe maybe also even be paid support of roughly $406,000 ordered owed as restitution to the charity.

Prosecutors insist she spent the money on personal indulgences, at the side of live efficiency tickets, shopping sprees, landscaping, taxis, groceries and family holidays.

Protection arguments that she made errors in judgment in response to family hardships and financial pressures drew skepticism from prosecutors.

“To secure certain, Shanley has faced monstrous tragedy and a lot of difficulties — the premature dying of her husband and a complete lot of family, moreover to youth and different members of the family struggling, emotionally, physically, and financially thru drug dependancy, divorce, disability, and particular wants,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

But they added that her “personal hardships are counterbalanced by her victimization of those very of us who faced linked conditions.”

“She discovered about their struggles, comforted them, and assured them that SOS used to be there to reduction. But all of the whereas, she used to be pocketing the money that had been donated to lend a hand them,” prosecutors acknowledged.

Shanley apologized, asserting she had “no one guilty but myself,” sooner than a complete lot of ladies folks who as soon as trusted her to jot down checks for the charity spoke.

Mary Beth O’Neill, a co-founder of the neighborhood whose husband used to be shot and killed by a profession prison in February 1984, acknowledged she used to be in disbelief when she discovered of Shanley’s crime.

“She has unquestionably stolen our reputation and that hurts,” O’Neill told the capture. “I develop no longer state out of anger or revenge. There’ll not be any happiness on this. There’ll not be any chuffed ending.”

Kathleen Vigiano, the neighborhood’s president and the widow of a police detective, acknowledged she has labored for the previous two years making an try to restore the charity’s reputation, at the side of by tightening financial controls, by in search of laws to give scholarships for youth and by lowering residence homeowners’ taxes.

“Our reputation is ruined,” she acknowledged. “She stole from us.”

The ladies folks acknowledged they felt most wretchedness attributable to the wound Shanley did to the charity’s potential to enhance money, harming the support to ladies folks who typically must count on minute pensions.

Marie Dziergowski acknowledged she concept to be Shanley her friend after she used to be the important thing widow to come to her residence after her husband used to be killed in 1999, but she now feels betrayed due to the she and Shanley shared test-writing responsibilities and a few widows now deem she used to be also guilty.

“Now, my reputation is ruined. I unquestionably derive widows who will no longer consult with me,” she acknowledged. “I insist: ‘Merry Christmas.’ They’ll no longer solution.”

She acknowledged Shanley had signed her name on some checks.

“Thank God the federal agents were in a region to ogle that wasn’t my signature,” Dziergowski acknowledged.