The former administrative assistant for the First Baptist Church of Pittston has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for stealing nearly $185,000 to support an online gambling habit, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Gail Nossavage, 62, of Harding, previously pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud alleging she made numerous fraudulent deposits into her own bank account with church money.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Karoline Mehalchick sentenced Nossavage to 15 months in prison followed by three years of probation, prosecutors announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The charges alleged that Nossavage worked as administrative assistant at the church at the church at 8 Water St. from April 2020 through December 2021.<\/p>\n
Nossavage managed church finances and was responsible for depositing monetary collections, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
An FBI investigation revealed Nossavage had been made at least 115 fraudulent deposits into her personal bank account using church funds, and had charged church credit cards for items without permission.<\/p>\n
Using church money, Nossavage illegally compensated herself for expenses she labeled as \u201cbonuses,\u201d \u201cmiscellaneous,\u201d \u201cvacation,\u201d and \u201ctravel,\u201d prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
In total, Nossavage stole $184,725 from the church, much of which she spent on online gambling platforms, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
In addition to time behind bars, Nossavage was ordered to pay restitution of the stolen money.<\/p>\n
Court records showed federal prosecutors have already seized $73,796 from her personal bank account as well as $1,591 from her Draft Kings account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former administrative assistant for the First Baptist Church of Pittston has been sentenced to 15 months in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,802],"class_list":["post-129563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-cvc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}