Former councilman sentenced to prison

When Anthony “Tony” Rife appeared in a Common Pleas courtroom last week after being picked up on a bench warrant for failing to appear for trial, he wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “Think Outside.”

“Thinking” about being out- side of a state prison is all that Rife will be able to do for the next one to two years, as he was sentenced to serve that term for stealing thousands of dollars from customers at two Downingtown National Bank branches, where he worked as manager before the thefts were

uncovered and he was arrested.

“I don’t know what got you involved in this,” said President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody as she accepted the plea agreement that had been offered by the prosecution and Rife’s attorney and imposed the sentence of 12 to 24 months in prison plus four years consecutive probation. “but you stole from innocent people.”

“You can now either sit and feel sorry for yourself” while serving the prison term, Cody said, “or you can treat this as an opportunity, what you are going to do to pay back these victims.”

Along with the prison time he received, Rife — a 39-yearold former Parkesburg borough councilman elected in 2017 who resigned from the council in January — was ordered to repay $66,521 to the bank to make restitution for the money he stole from nine customers there by improperly accessing their accounts and then using money from one account to make up the deficit his thefts had caused in another.

According to Assistant District Attorney Ryan Borchik, who prosecuted the case, one of the primary victims of Rife’s plundering was a special needs child whose account was to be used to pay for their support.

In a brief statement to the court, Rife said that he was sorry for what he had done to the bank and his individual victims. “I am going to make sure that this never happens again,” he said, standing beside his attorney, Michael Skinner of West Chester.

Rife was taken into custody at his home on West First Street in Parkesburg on Monday by Chester County Detective Keith Cowdright, who had investigated the thefts after being alerted to the scheme by internal investigators at the bank. Cody had issued a warrant for his arrest earlier that day after Rife did not appear in court, telling Skinner that he had been involved in a car accident. He did not appear to be injured during the plea proceeding.

He pleaded guilty to three charges, dealing in proceedings of unlawful activities, a first-degree felony, theft by unlawful taking, and computer trespass. In describing what Rife had done while he worked as the branch manager at Exton and Ludwig’s Corner, Borchik said he was responsible for taking $118,000 from nine accounts overall.

According to the criminal complaint filed by Cowdright — an investigator trained in financial fraud cases — between October 2015 and August 2017 Rife drained thousands of dollars from an account he had set up for the guardians of a special needs person without their permission. He would replenish the account over roughly that same period of time by transferring funds from other DNB customers’ accounts without their knowledge, sometimes signing their name on withdrawal slips.

The scheme was discovered by bank officials after the account holder for the special needs person — identified only as Victim No. 1 — called the Ludwig’s Corner branch to make a withdrawal from the account while Rife, who the person normally dealt with, was out of the office.

The person with whom Victim No. 1’s guardians spoke said that the account did not have sufficient funds to cover the requested withdrawal. Victim No. 1 stated that the account should have had in excess of $20,000. When bank personnel began looking into the account, they found a number of withdrawals from it authorized by Rife, as well as a number of deposits into the account from the accounts of other customers, including a dead man whose account was still open.

Rife