Almost exactly one year after she was charged for embezzling over $18,000 from the Onalaska Loggers Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), the association’s former treasurer was sentenced Wednesday to 10 months in jail.
Sara Beth Miller, 40, of Onalaska, pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree theft and first-degree identity theft on Sept. 2.
She was accused of taking out a debit card in her name for the PTSA’s bank account and using it to make personal purchases between Feb. 1, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2021.
While the maximum penalty for each charge is 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, the standard range — which is calculated based on the level of violence associated with the crime and the defendant’s criminal history — is two to six months in prison for the theft charge and six to 12 months for the identity theft charge.
State law generally prohibits the sentencing judge from setting a defendant’s sentence above or below the sentencing range.
The sentencing judge settled on a six-month jail sentence for the theft charge and a 10-month sentence for the identity theft charge to run concurrently, for a total of 10 months in jail.
Miller’s request to serve out her sentence via electronic home monitoring was denied due to her criminal history, according to court documents.
Miller was booked into the Lewis County Jail immediately after her 2 p.m. sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
She was initially arrested on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, and was released three days later on Monday, Nov. 8, on $10,000 unsecured bail, meaning she did not have to pay any of the bail amount as long as she followed her conditions of release and showed up to mandatory court hearings.
She was charged following an investigation by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office into “a large number of strange transactions not associated with PTSA activity” in Onalaska PTSA’s bank account, according to court documents.
While there was approximately $17,000 in the account in February 2020, the account held $20 at the time charges against Miller were filed on Nov. 8, 2021.
“I committed theft of property in excess of $5,000 and did so by use of an account at Twin Star Credit Union (of) the Onalaska Parent Teacher Association,” Miller wrote in her guilty plea.
Account statements reportedly showed purchases at the Great Wolf Lodge, Amazon, Apple, a tattoo parlor, a fast food chain and other businesses, according to court documents.
The account activity was discovered as the PTSA began trying to organize its fall fundraiser after being inactive since early 2020 due to the pandemic. While going through documents, the secretary discovered the association had been disaffiliated and had its 501c3 nonprofit status and resellers permits revoked.
In a written statement to the court at Miller’s sentencing hearing, Onalaska PTSA’s current president Brittany Locklin described the shock and disbelief she and other PTSA members felt when they discovered Miller’s theft and the struggles they now face in rebuilding the association and rebuilding trust within the community.
“I ask the court to realize that this is not a victimless crime … The victims are the students grades kindergarten to eighth who worked so hard with their teachers, parents, families and members of this small Onalaska community to raise money that they will never get back. The victims are the people who trusted that the money they could have spent on food, utilities or whatever they wanted was instead stolen and used on Sara Miller’s selfish desires,” wrote Locklin.
In addition to the jail time and subsequent year of probation, the sentencing judge also ordered Miller to pay restitution to the Onalaska PTSA.
The restitution amount will be determined at a future hearing, which had not been scheduled as of Thursday afternoon.
