PA Teacher Stole Nearly $200K From Union to Fuel Gambling Addiction

Written by :

Associated Press

Published on :

4 February, 2015

GIBSONIA, Pa. (Associated Press) -- A business teacher has been charged with stealing $175,000 he blew on lottery tickets and at casinos while serving as treasurer of his union at suburban Pittsburgh school district.

Defense attorney Christopher Thomas says 44-year-old Edward Maritz Jr. is taking responsibility for the crimes because his "conscience caught up to him."

Maritz is on sabbatical from the Pine-Richland School District.

Allegheny County district attorney's detectives say Maritz confessed to keeping members' dues and to stealing the money by writing 157 checks to himself since June 2010. He was hired as a middle school teacher in August 2009.

Detectives say Maritz told them he is a "pathological gambler" and was caught in a "perfect storm" adding, "People trusted me and I took advantage of the trust they had in me."

Crime

Gambling News

Rapper Chocolate MC, Las Vegas Casino Sued Over Alleged Rape of Teen

Chocolate MC is already incarcerated separately regarding an attempted murder-for-hire plot in Florida.

South Florida Casino Carjacking Suspect Captured One Month Later

Julio Salermo, 33, was charged with robbery/carjacking on Tuesday, one month after the incident occurred at the Miccosukee Casino & Resort outside of Miami.

Game Fixer, Jalen Smith Sentenced to Six Year Prison Term

(AP) PHILADELPHIA -- The man called the "fixer" of a scheme to rig college basketball games will spend six years in federal prison.

Las Vegas Casino Flamingo Theft Trial Kicks Off With Witness Testimony

The trial for a Canadian tourist accused of stealing and torturing a flamingo from a casino pool began on Wednesday with a security guard on his smoke break during a graveyard shift testifying about a voice crackled over the radio, “someone took a flamingo.”