A former Weehawken municipal court violations clerk was sentenced to a maximum of three years in state prison last week for allegedly falsifying parking ticket information and pocketing the cash.
After an investigation in June of 2008, Cathleen Vangelakos, a Weehawken resident and wife of a North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue captain, was charged with alleged official misconduct, embezzlement, and altering public records.
After she pleaded guilty to theft on Sept. 30, 2009, prosecutors dropped the official misconduct charge that could have landed the mother of three behind bars for 10 years.
Investigators believe Vangelakos stole $13,000.
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Initially, investigators believed Vangelakos stole about $500 in cash from the township, but have since discovered it was more like $13,000.
Vangelakos’s lawyer, John Lynch, said that his client might have been under “financial stress” at the time, which led her to commit the felony. “She knows that she made a terrible mistake, and violated the public trust,” Lynch said. “She could barely speak at the sentencing.”
Although Vangelakos worked with the department since 2000, Simpson said the illegal activity began only recently. “As far as we can tell, it didn’t go on for very long,” Simpson said.
Vangelakos was suspended from her $28,000-per position without pay in June. The Bonn Place resident had no previous record.
“We really have no idea what the motive was,” Simpson said.
A restitution hearing to determine exactly how much Vangelakos stole and how much she will pay back to the township will be scheduled soon. A preliminary meeting is scheduled for Feb. 24.
“My client knows she had a price to pay,” Lynch said. “I think the outcome was fair under the circumstances.”
Illegal activity
According to a story published by the Reporter last July, the funds were initially discovered missing after the Special Investigations Unit of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office conducted an undercover operation.
Normally, tickets entered the court violations system and offenders were assessed penalties, including fines and points on their driver’s licenses. But it seems that Vangelakos altered the records to make it appear as if the charges had been dismissed and kept the money herself.
Prosecutor Edward De Fazio called the theft an “unusual case” for Weehawken and praised the township for coming forward after noticing that records appeared amiss.
Interestingly, Vangelakos was featured in newspaper articles last year because she and her husband bought a condo in Florida and turned out to be the only residents of the building because the market crashed and other people moved to different buildings.
Sean Allocca can be reached at editorial@hudsonreporter.com