In a plea agreement in Charlottesville General District Court January 28, former city registrar Sheri Iachetta pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of intentionally removing city property, as did co-defendant Stephanie Commander. Both women originally were charged with multiple felony embezzlement counts for approving or using cell phones paid for by taxpayers.
Iachetta was charged with six felony counts when it was revealed that her husband, Pat Owen, continued to use a cell phone for years after he stopped working for the registrar’s office. Commander kept her cell phone after leaving the Electoral Board in 2011, and the city paid around $7,000 of taxpayer funds for both unauthorized phones.
As part of the plea agreement, each received a 90-day suspended sentence on every count, must do a total of 200 hours of community service within six months and must be on good behavior for two years.
Nelson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony Martin, who was special prosecutor for the case, said the four counts—two of Iachetta’s were nolle prossed—represented the four years of illegal phone use. Neither woman had ever been in trouble before and both immediately paid the phone bills after City Manager Maurice Jones launched an investigation in August after the Daily Progress reported the improper phone use. After the hearing, Martin pointed out that Commander, an attorney, now has a criminal conviction and Iachetta resigned her job as registrar two days after the November election.
“I think both of them used bad judgment,” said Martin. “Nothing was done to hide these phones. They were clearly on the bill for four years. If it had been an orchestrated attempt to hide it, we probably would have taken a different approach.”
After the hearing, Commander declined to comment. Her attorney, Fran Lawrence, said he didn’t necessarily agree with everything in a press release Martin would be putting out, but didn’t elaborate further.
Iachetta’s employee, Dianne Gilliland, first reported the phones to Jones last March. When she voiced her concerns about Commander’s phone bill to Iachetta, according to Martin’s release, Iachetta told her to submit the bill for payment because Commander would be back on the Electoral Board eventually. The city paid $2,532.22 for Commander’s phone from 2011 to August 2014.
Gilliland brought the matter to then-Electoral Board chair Joan Schatzman in August, and Schatzman reported it to police. Schatzman herself became a casualty of the incident, angering some of her fellow Dems by allowing Iachetta to remain in the job through the election. At a January 10 meeting, Schatzman, who had served nearly 12 years, was not reappointed to the Electoral Board by her party.
Owen was not charged because, when questioned by police, he said he thought his wife was paying for the phone and “seemed genuinely surprised” to learn that the city had picked up the tab of $4,663.84 from 2010 to August 2014, according to the release. Iachetta paid for his phone August 20.
“We could have fought it,” said Iachetta’s attorney, Janice Redinger, but she said jury trials are risky and expensive. Iachetta, said Redinger, contended all along it was an oversight, not a crime.
“People plead guilty all the time to crimes they didn’t commit,” said the attorney.
“Of course it’s a relief,” said Iachetta after the hearing. “Now I’m going on with my life.”
See Anthony Martin’s press release here.
Story updated at 11:40 am.
Correction 2/2/2015: The dates the city paid for Pat Owen’s phone were from 2010 to August 2014.