Addison Village Clerk to serve 3-9 years in prison

BATH, N.Y. ( WETM ) – After nearly two decades and more than $1 million stolen, former Addison Village Clerk Ursula Stone will serve 3-9 years in a state prison.

“Her entire career was a lie,” said Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker

“The message today is that you’re not going to get away with it,” said New York State Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli.

“Today is a great day for the citizens of the Village of Addison,” said New York State Police Detail Commander Samuel Spezio.

The actual sentencing won’t happen until Wednesday, August 7, but all details are finalized. Stone will be required to pay back upwards of $1.1 million to the government and in a rare move, is forced to forfeit her public pension.

“This is the first case in which a public official will be forfeiting their state pension as part of their criminal sentence. We’ve had changes in law. We’ve had a constitutional amendment, but this is the first time we’ve had a district attorney that has figured out the way in fact for there to be a forfeiture,” said Dinapoli.

“This was the perfect case to do this in and a perfect case to try it in. It was built by the state police and the comptroller’s office. They built us an airtight case so we could go in and say this is what has to happen,” said Baker.

In May, Stone pleaded guilty to the felony charge of corrupting the government. She was originally charged on 192 counts; including grand larceny, money laundering, and falsifying business records.

“The Village of Addison is not a large village. A million dollars over a 17 year period, essentially her entire career, impacted that village on a day to day basis. I know that there were times that they did not have the money to have 24 hour police service. I know there were times they didn’t have money for youth programs and they didn’t know why. Now we do,” said Baker.

“Criminal acts typically affect one person, sometimes a few people. In this case, an entire village was the victim,” said Spezio.

“The amount she pocketed accounts for nearly a full year of village expenditures,” said Dinapoli.

The investigation included sifting through more than 200,000 pages of documents.

“Financial reports that were not being timely sent to our office. That was a clear red flag and when the team went in, they started seeing some irregularities in terms of checks that weren’t appropriately deposited to village accounts. Turned out she was setting up other accounts and that really just led to a whole cascade of irregularities that were uncovered,” said Dinapoli.

Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker credits the New York State Police and the New York State Comptroller’s Office for the success of the investigation.

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