WILKES-BARRE—Two former city police officers were sentenced Monday for their roles in defrauding Wilkes-Barre City Employees FCU here.
Former Wilkes-Barre police officers Tino Ninotti and Jason Anthony pleaded guilty on April 27, 2015, to conspiracy to commit bank fraud after prosecutors said they signed fraudulent loan documents from the Wilkes-Barre City Employees FCU.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo sentenced the two former officers, ordering Ninotti to spend 30 days in jail while sentencing Anthony to time served of one day, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported.
Ninotti, 36, who also received two years supervised release, will report to federal prison June 1.
Ninotti, had pleaded guilty to signing his brother’s name on loan documents while his brother was deployed in Afghanistan in 2012. Jason Anthony, 35, pleaded guilty to signing a woman’s name on a loan document for a $7,159 loan on Jan. 15, 2014.
In imposing his sentence on Ninotti, Caputo said it was important that “a message go out to the community that we expect our public servants to do what they’ve expected to do,” the Times Leader reported.
“When you’re a police officer you’re certainly not supposed to engage in crime. That’s a given,” the judge said. “It turns the whole system upside down.”
“The root of this was an addiction,” said Ninotti’s attorney, Demetrius Fannick, according to the Times Leader. “It started with horse racing, it went to sports gambling and, when the casino became available, Mr. Ninotti certainly participated there. And that has destroyed his life.”
In a brief statement, Ninotti apologized for his actions and to those affected by his decisions, the Times Leader reported. “I was only thinking of myself in a time of desperation because I was overwhelmed by gambling debt,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Olshefski said Ninotti “accepted responsibility from the beginning.”
“It was Mr. Ninotti that opened the door for us,” she added.
Ninotti and Anthony cooperated as a “material condition” under the terms of their plea agreement to provide information about other criminal conduct in the case.
Anthony, whose sentencing immediately followed Ninotti’s, received one day time served and a two-year term of supervised release, including three months of home confinement, the Times Leader stated.
Anthony, a police officer since 2005, was suspended without pay on Aug. 22.
Anthony said he, too, was “in a bad, bad place at the time” of the crime due to a gambling addiction, but stated he has been receiving treatment and is striving to mend his character.
Three other players implicated in the credit union scandal have either pleaded guilty or avoided charges in the case.
Loan documents from the credit union, which leases space in City Hall, were subpoenaed by federal authorities in March 2014. Days later, credit union manager James Payne took his own life inside his Bear Creek Township home, the Times Leader noted.
Caputo in November sentenced Amanda Magda, the former assistant manager of the credit union, to time served and two years of probation after she pleaded guilty to participating in the fraud by acting as a witness to both signatures.
Credit union member Jeffrey Serafin was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release after he also pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges on Jan. 23, 2015.
Leo A. Glodzik III pleaded guilty on April 27 to mail fraud, filing a false income tax return and being a felon in possession of a firearm. It was Glodzik who prosecutors say provided the fraudulent vehicle identification number to Ninotti.
Glodzik, who remains free, faces a maximum of 33 years in prison and fines totaling up to $750,000. He is set to be sentenced Aug. 16.