“I really screwed up,” Smith told Judge Stacy Wall of county Common Pleas Court.
“You are sorry this happened because you know you are in a world of hurt,” Wall said.
Smith was sentenced to five years of community control and ordered to make monthly payments on $192,237 owed. Payments spread out evenly over 60 months of community control would be more than $3,200 monthly, the judge said.
Wall said she would review the sentence in six months.
If Smith does not seek ordered mental health and drug assessments and make progress on the restitution, he will be sent to jail for 30 days. A 24-month prison sentence also was reserved for Smith if he doesn’t complete the community control successfully.
“I will give you a chance on community control because that fire department needs its money,” Wall told Smith during sentencing held through a video connection with Smith at the office of his lawyer, Steve King, in Troy.
Sheriff’s detectives said Smith made withdrawals from department accounts beginning in 2016 with the amounts increasing over time. Money was used for home equity payments, jewelry, jail inmate calls and for credit cards. In addition, there were numerous cash withdrawals, detectives said.
Detectives said a department debit card was used by others in the Middletown area with Smith’s knowledge, for cash, tattoos and bar and restaurant bills.
Smith was involved in a relationship with a woman in Middletown, who he allowed to use the debit card, and used the card for her to make calls when she was in jail on an unrelated case. “She did take over my life,” Smith said.
Wall ordered him to have no contact with the woman as well as members of the fire department.
Smith said he would have to find a job and sell his home, located next to the fire department, in order to pay toward restitution.
Prosecutors recommended community control because of the large amount of restitution owed, but also advocated for a local jail sentence, said Janna Parker, an assistant county prosecutor.
Smith’s actions devastated the fire department, leaving it in a “pinch financially,” and the community, Parker said.
He was not part of the state police and fire pension system as part of the volunteer department so there was no pension to pursue for restitution, Parker said during Smith’s plea hearing last month.
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