AUGUSTA, Maine — A Gardiner woman who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $166,000 from the Maine Trial Lawyers Association is about to learn her punishment.
Bettysue Higgins, who worked as a bookkeeper for the association, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
She pleaded guilty last month to theft by unauthorized taking or transfer and forgery just before her trial was scheduled to begin.
The Kennebec Journal reports that prosecutors are recommending a six-year jail sentence, with all but one year suspended.
Prosecutors are also seeking full restitution.
Her lawyer has recommended a 12- to 20-month sentence.
The 54-year-old Higgins was charged with stealing the money between May 2006 and September 2010 by writing more than 200 association checks to herself for cash and forging the signature of the executive.
Is it illegal to steal from thieves?
only if they catch you. Surely she must have some dirt on them or they would not be free to have her indicted.
I don’t get it. A lawyer doesn’t pay his taxes for ten years, and gets ten days in jail, suspended for a month, and a $500.00 fines, and has to pay his taxes back. This woman steals money from some lawyers and is going to get a year? Lesson to learn folks: You can steal from the government, but you can’t steal from lawyers. How about this: She gets 11 days in jail, suspended from her job for two months and a $600.00 fine and she has to pay back the same percent of money as the lawyer did.
Good for the goose, good for the gandor.