TRENTON
– Attorney General Paula T. Dow and
Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor
announced that the former tax collector
for Fairfield Township, Cumberland County,
was sentenced to state prison today for
stealing $44,000 in property tax payments.
According
to Director Taylor, Heddi Sutherland, 43,
of Millville, was sentenced to five years
in state prison by Superior Court Judge
Robert P. Becker Jr. in Cumberland County.
She pleaded guilty on March 29 to second-degree
official misconduct, a charge contained
in a May 11, 2009 state grand jury indictment
obtained by the Division of Criminal Justice
Corruption Bureau.
Sutherland
was ordered to pay $44,000 in restitution
to Fairfield Township and will be permanently
barred from public employment in New Jersey.
Deputy Attorney General Susan Kase represented
the state at the sentencing hearing.
In
pleading guilty, Sutherland admitted that
between January 2003 and December 2007,
while employed as the municipal tax collector,
she stole approximately $44,000 from Fairfield
Township by collecting cash property tax
payments from township residents and keeping
the money for her personal use. The state’s
investigation revealed that Sutherland made
computer entries of the cash payments using
the township’s tax collection software
and issued receipts to taxpayers. However,
she then altered the computer entries in
order to conceal her theft of the cash,
which was never deposited into the township’s
bank account.
Sutherland
was terminated as Fairfield Township tax
collector in March 2008 because she could
not obtain the necessary security bond required
for persons holding such positions. The
new tax collector and an accounting firm
hired by the township for an audit discovered
a discrepancy between the amount of property
taxes collected and the amount of tax proceeds
actually deposited into the township’s
bank account. They referred the matter to
the New Jersey State Police and the Division
of Criminal Justice.
The
investigation was conducted by Detective
Matthew Peeke, Detective Sgt. Karl Ulbrich
and Detective Anthony Carugno of the State
Police Official Corruption Bureau, and Deputy
Attorneys General Kase and Michael Wicke
of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption
Bureau.
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