PITTSBURGH (AP) - A former rural Pennsylvania postmaster must spend two-and-a-half years on probation, including six months on house arrest, for pocketing more than $13,000 that customers paid for stamps and money orders.
Forty-seven year-old Lawrence Stoken III, of Export, was sentenced Thursday by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.
He had previously repaid $13,255 he acknowledged stealing from the Rural Valley post office from 2011 and 2013.
But Stoken also brought a $482 check with him to court to repay extra money that an audit determined was missing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Dillon says Stoken agreed to repay the extra money even though the government couldn’t prove Stoken stole it.
Stoken acknowledged stealing because he lost his second job as a mortgage broker while simultaneously seeing his adjustable rate mortgage payments increase.
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