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An ex-employee of the Fairfax County school system has plead guilty to embezzling money from the school activity and sports accounts to fund a blackjack addiction. Susan Thanh Litwin age 37 resigned in March after eighty years in the school system after she was charged with withdrawing $279,000 from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and technology and used most of the money to play blackjack in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Litwin’s attorney says she has a gambling addiction and that she is trying to pay it all back. She has relinquished the ownership of her home in Florida and plans on forfeiting her retirement savings from the school system which is worth about $600,000.
Federal investigators found that Litwin had written checks twenty seven times to herself and withdrew the funds for personal use from March 2008 to January 2010. She would deposit some of the money back into the accounts after she went on winning streaks at the casinos and before any audits would take place at the school.
Litwin returned from maternity leave in March when she was questioned by authorities. She then confessed and told investigators she used the money or gambling but also to pay off credit card debt and pay mortgage payments. She is scheduled to be sentenced in late July and she would go to jail for as long as ten years and have to pay $250,000 in fines.
2010-05-06
