When Joan Swaney served on the Clarkston City Council, she posted her motto on the city’s website: “Live with purpose, act with integrity.”
FBI agents, however, discovered the 69-year-old woman wasn’t heeding those words when they learned she had embezzled more than $75,000 from the Clarkston Community Center, where she worked as a bookkeeper and receptionist.
Swaney resigned her council seat after being indicted in October and pleaded guilty in December. On Thursday, wiping away tears, she begged Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Sr. to spare her prison time.
“If there were a million ways to say I’m sorry for this, I’d stand here and do it,” she said. “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for this. I’m very, very sorry.”
Pannell, accepting a recommendation from prosecutors, sentenced Swaney to eight months of home confinement and ordered her to repay what she stole from the center that serves a bustling refugee community.
Before sentencing, the center’s executive director, McKenzie Wren, strongly condemned Swaney’s actions.
Wren said when she took over the center in 2010, Swaney was already working there. Swaney’s skills on many levels were insufficient but, Wren said, she believed she had the councilwoman’s loyalty and trust. The two women anguished over the center’s budget and Swaney patted Wren’s back when she expressed frustration over everyone’s low pay, Wren told Pannell.
“Little did I know that even as she was patting my back, she was driving a knife into it,” Wren said.
“Joan Swaney lived in contradiction to her own motto and has been one of the worst things ever to happen to Clarkston,” Wren said. “I wonder how she can live with herself knowing that she betrayed not just me, not just the (community center) but all of the citizens that she was elected to represent.”
The center now serves more than 40,000 individual visitors, but it will take years to recover from the embarrassment of Swaney’s actions, Wren said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said it appeared Swaney began embezzling money from the community center to help pay medical bills for her husband, former Clarkston Mayor Lee Swaney.
She then began using the stolen funds to pay for vacations, home renovations and other personal expenses, he said. “I think it just got easier for her as she went along.”
Swaney has repaid $65,320 of the $75,759 she embezzled, mostly through contributions from family members and friends, her lawyer, Danny Durham, said.
Pannell gave Swaney 180 days to pay the remaining $10,439 in restitution. He also ordered her to perform 100 hours of community service — though not, he said, at the Clarkston Community Center.
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