Sometimes the law makes no sense

A 17th century playwright once wrote that the “law is an ass,” meaning that the application of the law is, on occasion, contrary to common sense.

That is what is at work in the case of Ann Marie Ballentine, who is challenging a ruling that orders her to repay the $362,000 she stole from the Easton church where she was once treasurer.

Taking a page from the defense of Robert Kearns, a Scranton-area businessman who is serving up to a year in jail for stealing $832,000 from Bethlehem Township involving a streetlight scheme, Ballentine’s attorney is making the same argument: the state, a municipality or a church is not a “victim”; only a person can be one.

Kearns and a co-defendant sold many municipalities, including a number of them in the Times News area, a bill of goods by insisting they could save thousands, even millions, of dollars by buying streetlights instead of leasing them.

This all started in November 2016 when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in the case of former state Rep. Mike Leon, D-Beaver, that he did not need to make restitution for $136,000 he owed after being convicted of public corruption in Harrisburg’s infamous Bonusgate scandal.

The state’s high court ruled that Pennsylvania’s Crime Victims Act defines a victim as “an individual” who suffers “physical or mental injury, death or loss of earnings.” The law does not apply to state government, because it is not an individual, Justice David Wecht wrote.

In the opinion in Veon’s case, Wecht said that every relevant noun or pronoun “unequivocally describes a human being, not a government agency.” And, he added, “nowhere else is there a relevant definition that persuades us to broaden the common understanding of these words.”

Savvy attorneys latched on to this decision and concluded that if the law does not refer to a government agency, then it doesn’t apply to a municipality or a nonprofit, such as a church, either.

State Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, and Pat Stefano, R-Fayette, co-sponsored a bill last year to try to plug this unintended wording in the state law, but, so far, the lethargic General Assembly has not passed this no-brainer. Even if it does, however, it is probably not going to include cases that are going through the courts.

In the Easton church case, Ballentine, 55, appeared contrite during the period following her 2014 arrest and indicated that she wanted to make things right. She had begun paying back some of the stolen money, even though it was $75 a week or less.

Her apparent remorse struck a forgiveness chord among members of the First Presbyterian Church of Easton congregation, and they turned out in court to ask the judge to go easy on Ballentine, a good woman who had made bad choices, they said.

The church’s former pastor said they were seeking restitution, not retribution from Ballentine. While Ballentine’s original intent may have been to wipe the slate clean and right the wrong she had committed, she and her attorney are now trying to crawl through this legal out.

Ballentine was sentenced to 9 to 23 months on work release after pleading guilty to theft. She was paroled in September 2015, but she still owes more than $350,000 of the restitution she was ordered to repay.

According to testimony in court, Ballentine stole the money over a seven-year period to pay for household expenses and the mortgage on her home. When the thefts were discovered, she admitted her involvement and cooperated with law enforcement officers.

Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano heard preliminary arguments earlier this month to drop Ballentine’s restitution requirement, and he has scheduled additional arguments for March 2.

We believe Giordano’s response should be the same that Senior Northampton County Judge Leonard Zito made in the Kearns appeal. Zito said this would take the ruling in the Veon case to an absurd extreme.

Whatever happened to people taking responsibilities for their misdeeds and bad behavior instead of trying to weasel out of them by finding loopholes in the law?

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com