Truesee's Daily Wonder

Lanette Sansoni will have to pay her former employer $750 a month in restitution for almost a half-million dollars she stole from the company.

A Warminster woman will not be allowed to leave her home, other than to go to work or find a better job, for the next 21 years.

During that time, Lanette Sansoni will have to pay her former employer $750 a month in restitution for the almost a half-million dollars she stole from the company.

Montgomery County Joseph A. Smyth Wednesday acknowledged that his sentencing of Sansoni to 21 years of electronically monitored house arrest was unusual.

While saying that he had been inclined to send Sansoni to prison for her crimes, Smyth said he was responding to the victim's request for a "creative sentence" that would enable him to recoup some of his losses.

Sansoni, of the 600 block of Whittier Drive, has already placed $180,000 she and her family received after selling off property into an escrow account to give to Kenneth Slomine.

Slomine was the owner of the now-defunct JRS Settlement Services Inc., a real estate settlement company that had its offices in Lower Moreland.

Although Sansoni in January pleaded guilty to ripping off $476,686 from the company, she and Slomine have since entered into a civil agreement for her to pay a total of $380,000 in restitution.

Smyth's sentence requires Sansoni to turn over the $180,000 in the escrow account to Slomine and pay an additional $200,000 in monthly installments of $750.

The sooner she pays off the restitution, the more quickly her house arrest sentence will come to an end, the judge said.

However, should Sansoni stop making her monthly restitution payments, he will put her in jail, Smyth said.

County Assistant District Attorney Steven Bunn had requested a jail sentence with work release eligibility for Sansoni.

"This is a case where it is going to take years to pay off the restitution," said Bunn. "While jail time will delay the payments, it would not be that much of a delay."

Slomine was not the only victim in the case, said Bunn. Claiming that Sansoni's theft from the company contributed, at least in part, to the company going belly up, Bunn argued that other employees in that company lost their livelihoods because of Sansoni's selfish actions.

"Her crimes were outrageous and egregious," said Bunn. "She was not taking this money to make ends meet. She was taking this money for luxury vacations, to buy designer handbags and designer jewelry, all at the expense of these other employees."

Smyth said the reason he did not send her to prison with work release eligibility is because that a portion of what Sansoni earned would have to be paid to the prison to cover the costs of incarcerating her. The money would be better going toward restitution, the judge said.

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