An 82-year-old former Chestertown councilwoman pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing funds she managed as treasurer of the Eastern Shore chapter of the Maryland Municipal League.
Mabel Mumford-Pautz entered her plea to felony theft in Cecil County and immediately repaid the $44,900 she admitted stealing between September 2008 and February 2014, according to the Maryland state prosecutor's office. Cecil County Circuit Judge Keith A. Baynes sentenced Mumford-Pautz to five years in jail but suspended the sentence and imposed three years of probation.
"Ms. Mumford-Pautz held a position of trust and violated that trust," State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said in an interview. "When a treasurer betrays the association they serve by stealing its funds, they must be held accountable."
Davitt said Mumford-Pautz's "age, her willingness to plead guilty and her ability to pay restitution up front" justified the probation.
While serving as treasurer for the organization, also called the Eastern Shore Association of Municipalities, Mumford-Pautz wrote 84 unauthorized checks from the group's bank account to herself and to "cash," according to charging documents. "Mumford-Pautz then made corresponding deposits into her personal bank account and used the money for personal purposes," the charges state.
She left her position as treasurer in 2014 after losing re-election to the Chestertown Town Council, a position she had held for 32 years.
"By way of explanation, not excuse, she had fallen on very difficult financial times and had too much pride to tell her children about it. That is why she ended up cashing the checks to herself," said Mumford-Pautz's attorney, former Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, who is now in private practice. "She's never been in trouble with the law before."
Gansler said she wrote the $44,900 restitution check directly to the Eastern Shore Association of Municipalities in court Wednesday.
The case was moved to Cecil County because the woman's son, Mark L. Mumford, is the circuit court clerk of Kent County, Davitt said.