Bookkeeper gets state prison for stealing $672,000

June 28--No matter how it is sliced, the $672,520 that Christina M. Russo stole from her Easton employer is a staggering figure.

A bookkeeper, for four years she wrote checks to herself and her husband from Harmony Press, a small printing company where more than 50 families like hers earn their livelihoods.

Annually, that works out to thefts of $168,130 a year. Or $14,011 for each and every month.

Or $461 a day. For 1,460 days.

Those were some of the back-of-the-envelope calculations that Northampton County Senior Judge Leonard Zito did Friday before he ordered Russo to spend 19 to 38 months in state prison, noting she will almost certainly never be able to pay back the business she looted.

Russo, 51, of Wilson pleaded guilty in March to felony charges of theft and forgery. And the sheer mathematics of her embezzlement told only part of the story at her sentencing, in which employees of the company packed three rows of the courtroom.

"She has literally pushed Harmony Press to the edge of bankruptcy," said Stephen Grotenhuis, the owner of the family business on West Berwick Street. That's meant layoffs, wage cuts, a loss of credit and nagging insecurity and overwork for all of Russo's former co-workers, he said.

Beginning in 2010, Russo used a signature stamp in Grotenhuis' name to pilfer Harmony Press, Grotenhuis said.

She took money meant for workers' health insurance, their retirements and even their child support obligations, he said. She stole funds earmarked for federal and state payroll taxes, and others that were owed to the company's vendors, Grotenhuis said. Often, she would overdraw accounts, leading to hefty bank fees as well, he said.

At the same time, Russo's fellow employees were being forced to tighten their belts and, Grotenhuis said, he began working without pay and using his personal savings to keep Harmony Press afloat.

"She stole from every one of us, the same as if she reached into our own pockets and stole our wallets," a former co-worker, Janet Oswald, said in a letter read in court by Grotenhuis.

Defense attorney Eleanor Breslin said Russo understands the damage she did and wants to make it up as best as she can. Breslin cast her client as an overly generous woman who was unable to turn down her own family members when they needed financial help.

"It is in part that selflessness that led to her being here today," Breslin said.

Russo apologized directly to Grotenhuis, saying she is "so sorry that you trusted me."

"I can't tell you why I felt the way I did, but I felt I couldn't say no to my kids, my grandkids, when they couldn't pay their bills," Russo told Zito, who said he found the explanation hard to believe.

"There's just too much money missing," Zito said.

Because Russo's crime is nonviolent, she could be paroled in as few as 14 months, under a state prison good-time program. Once she completes her prison term, she will be on probation for nearly 14 years as she tries to make restitution.

Russo's husband -- Brian D. Russo, 55, of Wilson -- was also charged in the thefts. But as part of her plea bargain, Assistant District Attorney James Augustine agreed to withdraw the allegations against him.

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