A former bookkeeper for the government-backed nonprofit that manages Penn’s Touchdown, Spruce Road Harbor Park, and different riverfront sights was sentenced to roughly 4½ years in jail Monday for embezzling greater than $2.6 million from the group.

Angela DiPietro-Sabatine, who managed the funds of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. from 1996 to 2019, used the cash she stole over seven years to gas a playing behavior and fund resort holidays within the Bahamas and Hawaii.

However as she stood earlier than U.S. District Choose Joshua Wolson for sentencing Monday, she laid out a a lot darker purpose for her theft. DiPietro-Sabatine, 58, of Pennsauken, defined she’d been trapped in an abusive marriage on the time with a person who she stated stole her cash for playing and to feed an habit to crack cocaine.

She started taking cash from work and playing with it on her personal, she stated, in hopes of paying off money owed and finally successful sufficient to repay the money she’d stolen.

“By some means all of it snowballed,” she advised the decide, wiping her eyes and talking softly from the courtroom lectern because the nonprofit’s executives sat behind her within the courtroom gallery. “By some means the extra I’d take, the extra he would gamble or plan a trip. … I can’t categorical how unbearably sorry I’ve been, I’m, and can proceed to be.”

Wolson, although expressing sympathy for DiPietro-Sabatine’s plight, stated he didn’t consider she ever had any intention of paying the DRWC again earlier than her crimes have been found in 2019. She pleaded responsible earlier this yr to counts of wire fraud, aggravated id theft, and financial institution fraud.

“To have repaid this cash would have been by its nature to threat detection,” Wolson stated.

Along with the jail time period of 51 months, the decide ordered DiPietro-Sabatine to serve three years’ probation upon her launch, attend therapy for playing habit, and pay again to her former employer the cash she stole.

Established to develop the publicly owned waterfront land between Oregon and Allegheny Avenues, the DRWC has launched and manages a number of leisure locations reminiscent of Penn’s Touchdown, the Spruce Road Harbor Park, and the Blue Cross RiverRink festivals.

DiPietro-Sabatine had labored for the group as an accountant since 1996 however solely started embezzling throughout her final seven years.

She used her entry to the DRWC’s books to attract up pretend invoices, lower checks payable to herself, and forge signatures of nonprofit executives so she might switch cash into her account.

As a result of she listed the withdrawals as funds to professional distributors, the group’s auditors failed to note the lacking cash till after she’d been fired in 2019 for what a DRWC spokesperson has described as unrelated efficiency points.

And by 2015, her scheme had change into so profitable, Assistant U.S. Lawyer Nancy E. Potts stated, DiPietro-Sabatine was embezzling greater than a half-million {dollars} a yr.

“Whereas her circumstances at house could have been extraordinarily troublesome, what she did on this case have been her actions, her selections, her selections,” Potts stated.

Prosecutors have beforehand stated DiPietro-Sabatine spent at the least $10,000 of her ill-gotten money at space casinos every month. In a single occasion, she misplaced greater than $34,000 throughout a 2017 playing journey to California.

The remainder went towards journeys to Lake Tahoe, Disney World, the Atlantis Resort within the Bahamas, and the Hawaiian Disney Resort.

As DiPietro-Sabatine and her lawyer, Nino V. Tinari, advised the courtroom Monday, she took most of these journeys in hopes of successful an enormous on line casino jackpot and paying again the cash she’d taken.

Potts dismissed their rationalization as a “fallacy” and famous DiPietro-Sabatine by no means paid one dime again to the DRWC.

“At any level she might have advised her employer what was taking place,” she stated. “At any level she might have halted what she was doing. However that by no means occurred.”

On the time of her arrest, DRWC officers described DiPietro-Sabatine’s theft as vital however stated they didn’t anticipate it to drastically have an effect on the group’s future operations as a result of it had been unfold out over a number of years.

In an announcement Monday, DRWC president Joseph Forkin stated that he was “deeply troubled” by DiPietro-Sabatine’s abuse of belief and that the group would proceed to pursue reimbursement from her.

“Whereas the DRWC has carried out a lot of protections to make sure that it doesn’t occur once more,” he stated, “we expect that the sentence was acceptable given the severity of the crime.”