The woman who embezzled an estimated $60,000 from the inmate accounts she managed at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center was ordered yesterday to spend nine months on house arrest and repay the county $10,000.

Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Joseph P. Manck also placed a judgment of $25,000 against Wanda B. Conaway, 41, of Huntingtown in Calvert County, which will allow authorities to garnishee her wages when she gets a job.

Manck said he will not jail Conaway, in part because he fears for her safety in the county Detention Center.

Conaway received death threats from inmates during a police inquiry -- which turned up nothing -- into money missing from inmate accounts in 1995, said her lawyer, Kevin L. Beard.

The inmate accounts are for money belonging to prisoners and available for their personal expenses. The county replaced the missing funds.

The police inquiry was the first of three investigations of jail accounts so garbled that the amount of cash taken remains unknown. County Auditor Teresa Sutherland found in a 1996-1997 probe of jail bookkeeping that more than $50,000 could not be accounted for. The review was part of a routine audit of county departments, several of which had the same sloppy money-handling practices that made embezzlement from the jail so easy, Sutherland said at the time.

Her report led to the state's attorney's investigation, which resulted in Conaway's arrest. She pleaded guilty to felony theft in December.

Yesterday, Manck placed Conaway on probation for five years, and ordered her to repay $10,000 over that period and to perform 250 hours of community service during the first two years. The maximum penalty for felony theft is 15 years.

Manck also placed the judgment against her. County officials can also file a civil lawsuit to try to recoup the loss.

"There is no excuse for what I did," Conaway told Manck. "I have lost friends who are important to me, and I lost the trust of people."

Conaway said she could account for about $12,000 of the more than $60,000 missing between November 1995 and December 1996, the period the indictment covers. Beard said his client did not lead the kind of life that would indicate she had stolen the larger sum.

Conaway worked at the county jail from September 1993 to August 1998, when she was arrested, and was earning $24,954 a year. Though no one else was charged, Beard said Conaway did not invent the embezzlement scheme.

"This started out, your honor, as something she had heard about in her first few years in the prison system," Beard said. Taking money from inmate accounts was common practice, he said.

Jail Superintendent Richard J. Baker disputed that later.

"No, it was not common practice," he said. "If it was a practice, I would have done something about it."

A 1990 audit of the jail found no improprieties.

Assistant State's Attorney Frank Ragione did not ask Manck for a specific sentence but reminded the judge that "Ms. Conaway was placed in a position of trust." He said the money paid for her trips to Hawaii and Williamsburg, Va., a stereo, bingo nights and everyday expenses.

Beard suggested that Manck give Conaway probation before judgment, which would have let her cleanse her record had she stayed out of trouble for a year.

Pub Date: 3/27/99