In U.S. District Court July 18, Mt. Airy resident Angela Hiltz made a teary apology to some of the women she used to call friends, including members of the Lisbon Elementary School PTA and a western Howard County Cub Scout pack.

She apologized for stealing money from them and their children.

“I’m sorry I scarred and hurt so many people. I’m sorry I destroyed a community,” she said. “This sounds so hollow, but I never meant anything with a calculated, criminal mind. My heart works one way and my head obviously didn’t follow.”

Her comments came just minutes before Judge Richard Bennett sentenced her to three years in federal prison for embezzling more than $232,000 from the PTA, the Scout pack, the Woodbine accounting firm at which she was employed as a bookkeeper, and one of the firm’s clients.

In April, Hiltz, 43, pleaded guilty to bank fraud as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

According to a statement of facts included in the plea deal, Hiltz used the embezzled money to purchase tickets to Baltimore Ravens football games, pay bills and furnish a beach house.

While she was employed as a bookkeeper at the Woodbine-based accounting firm of Haussler and Associates in 2006 and 2007, Hiltz embezzled $185,420 from one of the firm’s clients, the nonprofit Friends of Health Inc., by making checks payable to herself and forging the signature of her employer, Meredith Haussler, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein at the time of Hiltz’s conviction.

Hiltz forged Haussler’s signature on 35 checks — ranging in value from $1,780 to $9,250 — from the Friends of Health account, and made unauthorized purchases on her employer’s credit card totaling nearly $3,740, according to the statement.

Hiltz also volunteered as treasurer of the Lisbon Elementary PTA and treasurer of Cub Scout Pack 827, which is based in western Howard. She stole $23,599 from the PTA and $23,233 from the Scouts, according to the statement of facts.

At a sentencing hearing July 18 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, representatives of the groups from which Hiltz stole testified that the groups had been betrayed financially and emotionally.

Haussler said the ordeal devastated her business and her family.

“I have been put through an emotional hell that has aged me and tainted me,” she said. “I used to give people the benefit of the doubt but I’m no longer able or willing to do this.”

Janet Barlow, a representative of Cub Scout Pack 827, said the money Hiltz took from the pack included the proceeds of popcorn sales conducted by the scouts and that the money was intended to pay for camping trips and materials to build pinewood derby cars and model rockets.

 Barlow said the betrayal first saddened her, then angered her.

“I grew angrier and angrier,” she said. “This woman talked with us about her kids, laughed at our stories, then reached into our pockets and stole our money.”

Diane Liebno, a representative of the Lisbon PTA, said the group has struggled to pay bills owed to gift wrap and school supply vendors, and to sponsor student programs focused on the arts and on mock congressional hearings.

“The biggest impact of this crime isn’t tangible,” she said. “It involved someone we cared about, someone we trusted and someone we thought was our friend.”

Under the terms of the plea deal, prosecutors requested that Bennett sentence Hiltz to a term of between 27 and 33 months, which follows federal sentencing guidelines.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Gavin informed Bennett that prosecutors are continuing to investigate Hiltz’s involvement in additional incidents of alleged forgery and theft, and that Hiltz was convicted of theft in Frederick County earlier this week after she pleaded guilty to writing a bad check to an auto shop.

Bennett exceeded the advisory sentencing guidelines in handing down the 36-month sentence.

He did so because of what he called an “egregious pattern of willful theft” that extends back to 1983, when Hiltz received probation before judgment in a case in which she stole a ring from a jewelry store where she worked, he said.

“What’s troubling about Ms. Hiltz is that her actions seem quite calculated,” Bennett said. “It just seems incorrigible. ... This goes far beyond a matter of dollars here.”

Hiltz’s attorney, Joseph Murtha, said his client did not want to challenge any of the statements made by prosecutors and witnesses.

“There’s no adequate explanation and there’s certainly no excuse,” he said. “She perpetrated a fraud to fund a fantasy. ... They were living a life beyond their means.”

Hiltz said she did not know why she stole.

“Forgiveness is something I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy of,” she said. “... The realization that I may never see my children again and that it may be the best thing for them is very humbling. I want to try to be better.”

Bennett, who ordered that Hiltz be taken into custody at the end of the hearing, said he will recommend she be placed in the Federal Correctional Institution in Alderson, W.Va.
 
Bennett also ordered that Hiltz receive psychiatric treatment and serve five years of supervised probation and begin paying restitution following her release.

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