Former treasurer charged with stealing $35,000 from church
TACOMA, Wash. -- A former church treasurer and financial assistant for the City of Tacoma is charged with stealing more than $35,000 from Bethany United Methodist Church between 2008 and 2012.
According to the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office, 55-year-old Janet Sego was elected church treasurer in 2008, at which point she started writing checks to herself and making withdrawals from the church bank account.
The pastor and church board began to get suspicious when Sego failed to provide financial reports after numerous requests, according to the Prosecutor's Office. Suspicions were further aroused when a church check bounced in July 2011 and its main checking account became overdrawn in May 2012.
The church removed Sego as treasurer in 2012 and hired an accountant to start an audit.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, Sego was aware of the audit and confessed to the pastor she had stolen between $5,000 and $10,000.
But, the completed audit showed Sego had actually misappropriated $35,115.81, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
The Bethany United's pastor received an email from Sego this January asking if there was any news on her mistake and saying she was currently putting together $5,000 to give back to the church, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
She was arrested March 5 and arraigned Thursday.
I bet she was sweating bullets when they discovered how much she had taken. Thieves are scum. I hope she gets a serious sentence and not a slap on the wrist.
Problems started arising years ago, she refuses to show financial records, a check bounces in 2011 and it's not until 2012 that she's removed as the treasurer??Â
How do you not notice $35k missing from your church? No one thought to check further? See, that would have been the point, had this been a normal job in a normal setting, where the person was fired and possibly charges filed. Churches seem to give an odd grace period, no pun intended.
lets see I take 35K and offer 2 give back 5K and all is good? Â HA HA HA HA!
U R going to hell! Â
probably saw how much the pastor was getting and decided to give herself a raise.
But her offer of $5,000 means her heart is in the right place ..... isn't it? Have a heart people. What is $35,000 between parishioners?Â
She came like a thief in the night....
I somehow doubt the church will ever see it's money again. I wonder what she has "misappropriated" from the City of Tacoma?
"The Bethany United's pastor received an email from Sego this January asking if there was any news on her mistake and saying she was currently putting together $5,000 to give back to the church, according to the Prosecutor's Office".
'I just needs a little more time to steal the $5000 from someone else, then I'll  work on swindling the remaining balance very soon", says Sego.