The former treasurer of a Glendale Heights parent-teacher organization was placed on 30 months of probation and ordered to make restitution Friday after being convicted of stealing $532 from the group`s bank account.
Cathleen Maloney, 39, of 128 E. Montana St., Glendale Heights, also was ordered to serve 250 hours of community service.
”What you did was despicable, using your position of trust to steal money from a school and the children it serves,” Du Page Judge John Nelligan told her.
Maloney, the treasurer of the Americana School PTO in Glendale Heights from 1989 to 1991, was convicted by a jury last month of writing a check for $532 and depositing it into her personal account. The jury acquitted her of four other charges of theft involving checks totaling $2,496 written on the account.
”I have no quarrel with the jury, but this was reprehensible,” Nelligan said. ”It embarrassed a lot of people wanting to help children, including your own, and it could make it harder for such a group in its future fundraising activities.”
Maloney could have been sentenced to 5 years in prison, but Nelligan noted her lack of any previous criminal record.
Prosecutor Nancy Miller agreed with Nelligan`s decision, saying ”the children are the ones that lost out.” Maloney`s attorney, Charles Nave, had asked that Maloney be conditionally discharged and ordered to repay the $532. Maloney testified at her trial that although she made the checks out to
”cash,” signed them and cashed them, she gave the money to another mother to cover deficits in a fund to pay parents who monitored students at lunchtime.
