The former Shelton official who stole nearly $1 million in taxpayer money has been released after serving less than half her prison sentence.
Sharon Scanlon, 51, left York Correctional Institution in Niantic Jan. 16, roughly 24 months into 54-month prison sentence handed down by a judge at Superior Court in Milford two years earlier, after she pleaded guilty to first-degree larceny and first-degree forgery.
Click the play button below to listen to the parole hearing.
A lawyer representing Shelton at a Nov. 15 parole hearing for Scanlon, who served as assistant finance director until her August 2012 resignation, did not object to her receiving parole.
That’s because the city wants her to start paying back restitution still outstanding in the case, Mayor Mark Lauretti said Tuesday.
“There’s restitution due the city,” Lauretti said. “There’s no restitution when someone’s in jail.”
A state police investigation concluded Scanlon stole $914,153.50 between 2001 and 2012.
But the restitution due the city was limited by a five-year statute of limitations for her crimes.
The time she served works out to roughly 44 percent of the imprisonment term to which she was sentenced.
Model Inmate
A three-member panel of the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to release Scanlon after a November parole hearing that lasted about 20 minutes.
Several members of Scanlon’s family attended the proceeding.
The hearing began with a parole officer reeling off a laundry list of programs for inmates Scanlon had completed or was involved with, including a celebrated writing workshop program begun by novelist Wally Lamb in 1999.
By all accounts, Scanlon had been a model inmate while behind bars.
She did not pick up any disciplinary referrals, the parole officer said, and even landed a job in the warden’s office.
’Deeply Regretful’
Asked why she thought she deserved to be let out, Scanlon first apologized for her thefts, which a prosecutor described at her sentencing at almost $10,000 per month over the course of a decade.
“I’m deeply regretful for my actions that led me to be here,” she said. “They’re inexcusable, I know better, and I just can’t say how sorry I am for what I did.”
She also apologized to her former co-workers before saying she had tried to turn her life around while imprisoned.
“I’ve tried to do as much as I can, enroll in as many groups as I can to improve myself and work on my faults and the things that I’m not as good at,” she said.
She said she’s been working with a rescue dog program and hoped to some day be able to work in that field. She also said she completed a course in paralegal training while jailed.
“I’m better prepared to go out and get a job once I do leave here,” she said. “I’ve just tried to show through my actions that I am a different person and that I recognize that I did the wrong thing and I’m ready to go out and be a positive and contributing member of society again.”
Click the play button to listen to Scanlon’s opening statement. Scanlon opening
’This Was A Lot Of Money’
Pamela Richards, the first member of the parole board to quiz Scanlon during the hearing, was impressed with Scanlon’s behavior while in prison.
But she noted that Scanlon stole money from the city for many years.
“I just wondered how did you start?” Richards asked. “Why did you start? What were you thinking at the time?”
Scanlon replied that she “obviously wasn’t thinking in my right mind.”
“I got myself into trouble with debt, as so many people do,” she went on, echoing comments she made at her January 2014 sentencing in the case.
“I was too embarrassed to say that I needed help, I was too ashamed to come forward and say that things weren’t going the way I needed them to,” Scanlon told the parole board.
“There’s the saying that the shoemaker’s children go without shoes,” she said. “Well here I was working in accounting and I couldn’t make my own accounting at home work, and I was embarrassed by that. I felt a lot of stress and I made a horrible decision to do what I did, and then I continued to do it. I can’t make an excuse for it. There is no excuse for what I did. It was the wrong thing to do. I was too wrapped up in my own pride to acknowledge it.”
“OK, but I mean, this was a lot of money,” Richards replied. “At some point you had reconciled your own bills, and you were still taking money, you know?”
Scanlon said she was just paying back interest on her bills, not the principal.
But she went on to concede that “there was greed involved too, absolutely. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
’You Must Have A Mansion’
The chairman of the panel, Kenneth Ireland, seemed skeptical.
He noted she was being paid by the city, and that her husband was working at the time she embezzled.
Her salary at the time she resigned was $82,380, according to her union contract.
“Two incomes, plus all the extra (stolen) money,” he said. “You must have a mansion out there waiting for you right?”
“I don’t,” Scanlon said, later noting that the city had put a lien on her Crescent Drive home as part of a civil lawsuit against her.
“A Mercedes? A Bentley?” Ireland asked. “You must have a really nice car with all that extra money.”
“I don’t. I don’t,” Scanlon repeated. “I never have lived extravagantly.”
The response didn’t sit well.
“Well obviously you were because you were bringing home two incomes plus all this money you were stealing,” Ireland said. “You were living extremely extravagantly.”
“For what we made, yes I was,” Scanlon said.
Ireland then asked if she realized the full magnitude of her actions.
Article continues after timeline of the case.
“You have all these bills still stacked up, all that debt, and the restitution,” he said. “You’ve got a big hole to dig yourself out of.”
He pointed out the city could’ve used the money she stole.
“You took more than half a million dollars,” he said. “You’ve taken money from the fire department, who saves lives every day. Who knows how many countless people could’ve been impacted because of the lack of funding. You took money from the police department. Who knows how many people were victimized or cases weren’t solved because of the lack of funding.”
“There’s countless victims of this crime,” he added later. “People are paying more in taxes because of you, right?”
“Absolutely,” Scanlon replied. “It was inexcusable what I did. I had an unjustified sense of entitlement. There’s just no excuse for it.”
Click the play button to listen to the back-and-forth. Ireland questioniong
Victim Input, Vote
Ramon Sous, Shelton’s assistant corporation counsel, was also in attendance at the hearing.
He told the parole board that the city won a $731,000 civil judgement against Scanlon that is still “unsatisfied.”
The city has recovered some money through an insurance policy and a pension Scanlon forfeited, but not the entire amount.
Click here for more details from a previous story.
“We’re not taking an issue with parole per se, but we’re really looking to see and to protect the interests of the taxpayers here and to try and get the money back as soon as possible,” Sous said.
Click the play button to hear Sous’ remarks. Sous remarks
After going into executive session for an unspecified period of time to discuss “confidential inmate information,” the board returned and voted unanimously to grant Scanlon parole Jan. 16.
Her parole came with two conditions: that she not handle any money at any job she gets, which would have to be approved in advance from a probation officer.
Mayor, Defense Attorney React
Scanlon’s lawyer in the criminal case, William F. Dow III, said Tuesday he was unaware Scanlon had been paroled.
He declined to comment on the specifics of the case because he said he is no longer involved in the matter.
But he said that in general, the amount of time Scanlon served behind bars was about par for the course.
“For nonviolent offenses, calculating good time and other factors, that is a standard sentence,” he said. “It appears she was not given any special treatment.”
Mayor Mark Lauretti said the city just wants its money back, and said he hasn’t heard any feedback from residents about Scanlon’s release.
“I suspect people aren’t aware of it,” Lauretti said. “Everybody looks at these things differently. I’m not sure what’s to be gained by the extra year in jail. The goal really is for the city to make up its losses. We’ve done OK to this point.”
The mayor pegged the amount still owed at about $250,000.
“I think we’ve gone as far as we can go with it,” he said. “We’ve got to follow up with the open balance.”
Here is the arrest warrant obtained by state police in the case.
