| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Ex-Bergenfield official given 8 years for stealing $230G from borough, day-care program |
| 2010-02-26 |
| Bergenfield's former deputy tax collector was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for stealing more than $236,000 from the borough and a day-care program. Marlon Mikesell admitted that he collected more than $196,000 in property tax payments from residents and took $40,000 from a non-profit child care program. He then used the money to buy himself a car and a laptop, and sent the rest of the money to his family in the Philippines, he said Thursday at his sentencing in Superior Court in Hackensack. "I would like to ask for forgiveness from the people of Bergenfield," Mikesell said. "There are no excuses for what I did." As part of his sentence, Mikesell must pay the full amount in restitution. Judge Patrick J. Roma said he rescheduled Mikesell's previous sentencing dates to give him time to come up with the money, but Mikesell has not made any payment so far. The borough has received compensation from an insurance company for its losses, Roma said, but the theft will still affect the town's future rates, Roma said. "The people who bear the pain of this defendant's actions will be the taxpayers," Roma said. Defense attorney Joshua Cohn said Mikesell's scheme was not "well thought-out." "This was not a criminal enterprise where he went out saying, 'I'm going to hurt people'," Cohn said. Mikesell and his family are still trying to transfer money from the Philippines to pay the restitution but are being hampered by bureaucratic red-tape, he said. Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor James Santulli, however, said Mikesell conducted systematic fraud over a long period of time -- from August 2006 to March 2007. Bergenfield Police Capt. Michael Carr, who led the investigation into the theft, told Roma that Mikesell made up fictitious employees on the payroll as part of his scheme to steal money from the daycare program. Mikesell's sentence could be reconsidered if he pays the money. As a non-citizen convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude," he faces deportation at the end of his term. |
| Posted by:Fred |