SCRANTON \u2014 Former Fairview Twp. tax collector Karen McGinnis wiped tears from her eyes in federal court on Tuesday morning as she apologized for embezzling over $400,000 in public funds that she blew while feeding an online gambling addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sit here today and take full responsibility for my actions,\u201d said McGinnis, 46, of Fairview Twp. \u201cI can\u2019t express how sorry I am. \u2026 I got in over my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGinnis delivered her teary-eyed apology moments before U.S. District Judge Karoline Mehalchick sentenced her to serve 20 months in federal prison followed by three years of probation. The judge, who chided McGinnis for breaching the public\u2019s trust, also ordered her to pay an outstanding balance of $367,088 in restitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not an insignificant amount of money, and it\u2019s not a trivial amount of money. There is significant loss here,\u201d Mehalchick said. \u201cThis is not a victimless crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGinnis pleaded guilty in September to embezzling public funds for stealing tax revenue she had been entrusted to collect on behalf of Luzerne County and the Crestwood School District between March 2023 and January 2025.<\/p>\n
The offense carried a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison, but McGinnis faced a guideline range of only 18-24 months due to the offense\u2019s grading and her lack of a criminal history.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Leonard Gryskewicz Jr., of the Wilkes-Barre firm Lampman Law, argued on behalf of McGinnis for house arrest, saying she is an \u201coutstanding mother\u201d of three girls and an \u201cotherwise upstanding citizen\u201d whose life had been consumed by gambling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story of this case begins and ends with Ms. McGinnis\u2019 mobile gambling addiction,\u201d Gryskewicz told the judge.<\/p>\n
According to a sentencing memorandum the defense filed in court, McGinnis, who became Fairview Twp.\u2019s tax collector in January 2018, began experiencing a number of \u201cmental health and personal life struggles\u201d while in office, including several miscarriages, marital problems and diagnoses for generalized anxiety disorder and\u00a0 major depressive disorder.<\/p>\n
Amid those struggles, McGinnis began dipping into the tax collector bank accounts to fuel her gambling habit in March 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcGinnis used mobile gambling as an escape from the personal issues she was facing,\u201d Gryskewicz wrote in the memo. \u201cMcGinnis did not use the embezzled funds to live a lavish lifestyle. Instead, she lost the funds gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because McGinnis was gambling online rather than in a physical location, the \u201coverwhelming temptation to gamble\u201d was at her fingertips 24\/7, he wrote, noting that an online gambling addiction can be easy to hide.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the world, McGinnis appeared as a normal mother of three,\u201d Gryskewicz wrote. \u201cBut inside, she was at the mercy of her gambling addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to that addiction, McGinnis mistakenly thought she would be able to repay the money she was stealing, he wrote.<\/p>\n
Between December 2023 and January 2025, she did deposit $31,773 back into the taxpayer accounts, according to the filing.\u00a0But Gryskewicz noted that inevitably \u201cthe situation spiraled out of control and she was never able to repay the full amount.\u201d<\/p>\n
The embezzlement was discovered when McGinnis attempted to remit a tax payment and bounced a check. She later made the payment using money from her personal bank account, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Upon being caught, McGinnis immediately cooperated with the Internal Revenue Service, resigned from office, began counseling sessions and achieved \u201cgambling sobriety\u201d that has continued to this day, Gryskewicz wrote.<\/p>\n
The attorney also noted that McGinnis immediately deleted the\u00a0BetRivers: Casino & Sportsbook application from her phone.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors conceded that a sentence at the low end of the guideline range was warranted due to the mitigating factors in the case, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle A. Moreno told the judge that the defense\u2019s request for house arrest went \u201ctoo far.\u201d<\/p>\n
He read a victim-impact letter describing how First Keystone Community Bank was impacted by McGinnis\u2019 deception and said it was important to send a message that would deter others from similar conduct.<\/p>\n
According to a sentencing memorandum filed on behalf of the government, McGinnis was supposed to be depositing the tax revenue into two accounts at First Keystone \u2014 one for the county, the other for Crestwood \u2014 and she avoided detection because she \u201cwas not subject to any supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one from the county or school district had access to the accounts, nobody ever audited McGinnis\u2019 books, and her representations about how much money she was collecting \u201cwere presumptively accepted by the taxing districts,\u201d according to the filing.<\/p>\n
The breach of trust as well as the \u201clength and magnitude\u201d of McGinnis\u2019 crime demonstrated the seriousness of the offense, Moreno wrote. However, the prosecutors nevertheless requested a sentence on the low end of the guideline range because of a number of mitigating factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a victimless crime, and the damage to the trust in public officials by the local community when public corruption of thismagnitude is revealed cannot be overstated,\u201d Moreno wrote. \u201cThat said, as the defense points out in its sentencingmemorandum, there are many mitigating circumstances in McGinnis\u2019s history and characteristics, such as her battles with addiction, struggles in her personal life, and lack of criminal history.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the plea deal McGinnis reached in September, she agreed not to seek public office for three years or until she is released from prison, whichever term is longer, and to make full restitution of the stolen money.<\/p>\n
However, Gryskewicz said McGinnis has had trouble finding employment because of the criminal case and is currently working as a food-delivery driver.<\/p>\n
In imposing the sentence, Mehalchick ordered a portion of any money deposited into McGinnis\u2019 prison account be garnished to cover the balance of her restitution.<\/p>\n
The judge granted a request for McGinnis to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence on April 13, allowing her to remain free for an upcoming birthday party for one of her daughters, who range in age from 5-10.<\/p>\n
McGinnis, who has been attending counseling, said she is now focused on rebuilding the community\u2019s trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying to do what I can yo make this situation right,\u201d McGinnis told the court. \u201cI know I have a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Former Fairview Twp. tax collector Karen McGinnis wiped tears from her eyes in federal court on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,21433,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,802],"class_list":["post-141052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-courts","tag-fairview-township","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\/141052","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=141052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}