‘Long, slow bleed’ earns woman prison time

WEST CHESTER » Lisa Saxe’s thefts from her employer were not a “just-this-one-time, I’ll-pay-it-back-as-soon-as-I-can, I-just-need-the-money-to-pay-the bills” embezzlement scheme.

Rather, according to the prosecutor who handled the sentencing hearing for Saxe before Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey R. Sommer on Tuesday, it was a series of multiple thefts over a significant period of time, in a number of ways that left the company for which she worked imperiled financially and betrayed psychologically.

“This was a long, slow bleed,” said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Miler, in urging Sommer to exceed the normal state sentencing guidelines in punishing Saxe for the thefts, which totaled more than $230,000 over a 10-year period. “You are looking at someone who did this for a very long period of time. This is fairly egregious example of thefts from a locally owned, family business.”

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” Miller declared.

Sommer, in handing down his sentence for the 49-year-old former resident of Claymont, Del., noted that Saxe’s thefts were not simply from the company for whom she worked as office manager and bookkeeper, William Cohen & Sons of Thorndale. They amounted to thefts from all of her coworkers and their families, since they were all made worse by the company’s sour financial position due to her excessive pilfering in one form or another.

“This really is a theft from many individuals,” Sommer stated. “It is not a victimless crime. It’s the same as going in there with a gun and robbing them with a .45.”

Sommer sentenced Saxe to five to 14 years in state prison, just shy of the 5 ½ year minimum that Miler had recommended. He also ordered restitution of $167,000, the amount that is left from what Saxe paid the firm back before she pleaded guilty in October 2017.

The delay in the sentencing came because after she entered her guilty pleas of counts of theft by unlawful taking and access device fraud, Saxe ran away, telling not even her husband and two daughters where she was going, Miller said. She had reportedly sold her house to have funds to pay back what she owed the Cohen company, but used the money instead to fund her flight. She was eventually arrested by authorities in Texas in June.

Officials of the company, a 68-year-old family owned firm that sells trucks and truck parts, told Sommer in statements about the impact of the thefts not only in financial but personal terms. Saxe had come to the company as an entrylevel worker, but worked her way up the company ladder by endearing herself through her work to the late company president, Jacob Cohen.

Jacob Cohen treated Saxe like a member of the family, entrusting its finances with her and showing his appreciation by taking her for family dinners, his nephew Alan Cohen said in court. Jacob Cohen died before finding out that Saxe had been stealing rom the firm on a regular basis, using the money to feed a gambling habit that saw her run up losses of more than $800,000, Miller said.

She was arrested in August 2016 by Detective Sgt. Christine L. Cusick of the Caln Police Department after being confronted with her thefts. She gave herself unauthorized salary raises, unearned commission checks, and even upgraded her health insurance benefits to help pay for family medical care. All the while she was using the funds to gamble at area casinos.

“We had complete trust in her,” Alan Cohen said. “She knew that she had a level of trust and that she would be able to get stay with all her illegal acts for a long period of time. It is hard for me to express how hurtful this has been for me.”

Said Michael Cohen, another member of the family company, “Lisa knew how much she could get away with because (the family) trusted her completely. They never looked over her shoulder.”

Alan Cohen said that when the Great Recession hit in 2008, the company had to lay off workers because they did not have cash on hand to tide things over — the result of Saxe’s thefts.

Reading from a prepared statement, Saxe seemed to minimize what her thefts had wrought, apologizing for the “inconvenience and hardship I may have caused.”

“You treated me like family, and I betrayed your trust,” Saxe said, seated before Sommer and next to her attorney, Julia A. Theobald of the Ciccarelli Law Firm of West Chester. “I’d like to be given the opportunity to make up for the pain and hardship I caused.”

Sommer seized on her description of her crimes’ impact as an “inconvenience.”

“Stealing $250,000 isn’t an ‘inconvenience,’” he said. “An inconvenience is failing to show up for work on time.”

To contact Staff Writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.