ARDMORE, Pa. — An Ardmore, Pa., woman who pled guilty to stealing more than $394,000 from the roofing contractor she worked for has been sent to prison.
According to The Mercury, Tiarah Tiffany Brokenborough was sentenced on Thursday to one to two years in prison for felony charges of dealing in proceeds of illegal activities and theft by deception. She is also sentenced to five years’ probation and to pay full restitution.
The charges are in relation to incidents that occurred between October 2018 and March 2020, when Brokenborough, 31, used her position as bookkeeper for Hynes Roofing and Siding to steal nearly $400,000 from the business using company credit cards.
According to prosecutors, Brokenborough used the money to fund a “lavish lifestyle” that included $28,000 worth of tickets for sporting events and concerts; $5,865 to a plastic surgeon for liposuction and buttock augmentation; car payments; fine dining; and other purchases and expenses.
“The defendant was in a position of trust and violated that trust in her position as bookkeeper for the company. It’s incredibly selfish on your part. There’s no excuse. What you did is totally unacceptable,” Montgomery County Court Judge Thomas P. Rogers said to Brokenborough.
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Defense lawyer Eugene Tinari requested a term of house arrest for Brokenborough, saying it’d be more practical and allow her to work and begin paying the restitution.
“She needs to be punished. Above that, they (the victims) need to be compensated,” Tinari said.
Tinari claimed Brokenborough had a dysfunctional childhood and suffered from a bipolar disorder, which can cause people to act irrationally.
Rogers rejected the request for house arrest. He also denied a request that Brokenborough surrender to authorities next week and had deputies take her into custody to begin serving her sentence.
According to The Mercury, the sentence was handed down after hearing testimony from John Joseph Hynes, who owns the roofing company with his wife, Michelle.
“I’m 70 years old and I’m still working 10 to 12 hours a day because of what she did. It’s been hard on me emotionally and financially. It’s very painful to talk about,” Hynes said, according to The Mercury. “My dreams of retiring kind of went down the drain. Frankly, I don’t know when I can retire.”
Brokenborough pled guilty to the charges earlier this year.