Activist, 80, spared jail in thefts
Nettie Anderson, 80, a former executive of the Community Action Organization of Erie County and a longtime East Side community activist, was spared a jail term Monday but ordered to repay the $73,905 she stole from the organization.
The thefts occurred while Anderson was running one of the organization’s low-income home repair programs.
Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D’Amico told Anderson, of Girard Place, that if it weren’t for her age and ill health, she would be sentenced to jail time for creating fake employee records and corresponding paychecks, which she then cashed from December 2002 until October 2005.
D’Amico ordered Anderson to serve five years’ probation on her third-degree grand larceny plea and told her the full restitution has “got to be paid, one way or the other.”
Anderson was arrested in May after an investigation by the state attorney general’s office, acting on an audit by the state Department of State, which conveys federal funds to the organization.
Anderson declined to comment as she left court. Sam Davis, her attorney, told the judge that his client’s actions do not “give a true overall picture of who she is as a person, it simply reflects the instability of her financial situation at the time.”
According to court papers, the attorney general’s investigation found that between Dec. 27, 2002, and early October 2005, Anderson stole the funds while serving as the organization’s facilities director, overseeing its Low Income Home Repair Program until she resigned in November 2005.
The program hired workers to repair and rehabilitate buildings owned by the organization.
