Judge sentences two-time embezzler to prison

The Chester County woman who stole almost $100,000 from her employer told the judge presiding over her sentencing Wednesday, April 10, that she had used the money to help pay for the medical expenses she incurred while battling ovarian cancer.

“I am truly very sorry for my actions,” Amber Goodman told Common Pleas Court Judge Alita Rovito, reading from a written statement as the owner of the company she embezzled from looked on in the courtroom. “I don’t know what I was thinking in the moment. I felt afraid and desperate.”

She only this week finished her treatment for the cancer, which had returned in 2021 when she was working as a bookkeeper for Sulpizio Inc. of West Goshen. “None of this makes what I did right, and I will work as hard as I can to pay back the money I stole,” she said.

But Rovito, who noted at the start of the sentencing hear that Goodman had already been convicted once before of sealing from an employer in Berks County, said nothing could lessen the crimes she pleaded guilty to last year.

“I don’t know what you did with the money,” the judge said as she explained her sentence, and whether it went to pay medical bills. “All I know is that there were other avenues than stealing. It is one of the worst things you can do.

“The fact that it is the second time in less than three years makes it worse,” Rovito said.

The judge sentenced Goodman, 33, of Chester Springs, to a term of imprisonment of 11½ to 23 months, which she will serve at Chester

County Prison beginning April 22. The prosecution had asked for a sentence of 15 months to 60 months in state prison, but Rovito said she did not find that an appropriate fit for Goodman.

Assistant District Attorney Kaitlyn Michalek, who inherited the case from former Deputy District Attorney William J. Judge Jr., who left the D.A.’s Office for private practice, said that the brazenness of Goodman’s theft so close to her conviction in Berks County, where she admitted to stealing more than $120,000 but received only house arrest as punishment, led her to press for the aggravated sentence.

“I cannot think of anything that is more aggravating than this being a second offense in so short a period of time,” Michalek told the judge, noting that even though some restitution had been made to the company, “the family is still dealing with the consequences of this today.”

Joe Sulpizio, who started the small HVAC firm 20 years ago, said that the money that Goodman had stolen came from credit accounts that were supposed to be used only in emergencies. Because of that, he has had to pay $10,000 in interest that otherwise would have gone to more pressing business expenses.

In addition, because the company ran short of cash because of her thefts, he cannot make purchases from vendors on credit to this day.

“After 20 years, the company was on the brink of closing,” Sulpizio said. His employees, his family, “we are all victims. And Amber Goodman’s crimes have impact far beyond what happens here today. We may not be able to operate the company in the future.”

In March, Goodman pleaded guilty to charges of forgery and theft by deception. As part of her open plea, she acknowledged that she had taken $98,316 from Sulpizio Inc., over several months while she was employed as the company bookkeeper.

Sulpizio, a West Goshen plumbing and HVAC contracting firm, used a vendor called Goodman Manufacturing as part of its business. According to West Goshen Police Officer Andrew Manko, who investigated the case, Goodman took checks that had been prepared for the manufacturing company and altered them to read “Goodman, Amber” in the payment line.

Between May 2021 and June 2022, she submitted 37 rewritten checks to her personal bank account, using the funds for her own personal expenses. The forgery was discovered and Goodman was arrested in August 2022.

But prior to committing those crimes, Goodman had been arrested and charged with stealing more than $120,790 from her then-employer in Berks County.

According to an arrest affidavit in that case, from March 2018 until October 2018, Goodman used the PayPal account of Strunk Media, a Kutztown-based web developer and digital design firm, to transfer the money to herself. Fleetwood police determined that she used the money to, again, pay for personal expenses.

In October 2019, she was sentenced to nine to 23 months in Berks County Prison but was allowed to serve the minimum prison term on electronic home monitoring. She also received three years of probation.

In asking that his client not be made to serve time in a state prison, defense attorney Paul Mallis of the Philadelphia firm of Young, Marr and Mallis said she understood her previous conviction would mean she could not escape jail time.

But he asked Rovito to take into consideration her early admission of guilt, her cooperation with police into her finances, and her acceptance of responsibility by pleading guilty.

Her medical condition, “was not an excuse or justification” for the thefts, Mallis said. “But it does explain her situation. She was striving to support her economic issues given the health issues she was experiencing. That is what led her to this. She saw an opportunity and she took advantage of it.”

But Michalek argued that Goodman’s work with police in uncovering the extent of her breach of the company’s trust should not be something that necessarily shortened her sentence.

“I do acknowledge that she did cooperate,” the prosecutor said. “But she was cooperating after she got caught.”

In addition to the time she spends in prison, Goodman will be under court-supervised probation for five years, have to undergo a mental health evaluation, and pay full restitution.