PITTSBURGH (AP) A former western Pennsylvania church administrator who is currently in state prison for stealing $1.2 million was sentenced to a federal prison term related to the embezzlement.
David Reiter was sentenced Tuesday to more than two years and must also pay more than $1.4 million in restitution to the IRS. He had pleaded guilty to 16 federal counts last December, including willful failure to pay employment payroll taxes and filing false income tax returns.
The federal prison term will run concurrently with the five to 10-year sentence he received for the state charges, which included receiving stolen property, theft and forgery.
Prosecutors said the money was stolen over the course of about 17 years from the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair, where Reiter had been administrator since 2001. They said Reiter, 52, and his ex-wife used the money to pay for vacations, sports tickets and other personal expenses.
Reiter’s lawyers has said his client’s ex-wife, Connie Jo Reiter, subjected him to emotional abuse and pressured him to provide a lifestyle he could not afford. She pleaded no contest to conspiracy and receiving stolen property charges and received three years of probation.