The three schemes were unrelated. Watch video
WOODBRIDGE -- Three women got probation after they admitted stealing a total of $21,000 that had been raised for local school children in unrelated schemes in Colonia and Middlesex Borough, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said Wednesday.
The money was meant for kids, but instead was used for personal purchases including liquor, meals and a shed, prosecutors said.
Mary Sue Fisco, a 61-year-old former Colonia High School teacher; Michelle Ledesma, a 35-year-old former PTO president from Middlesex Borough; and Linda Koche, 47, a former cafeteria worker in Middlesex, were sentenced after guilty pleas reached with an assistant prosecutor over the past three months.
Prosecutors said Fisco oversaw Project Graduation, a program that raises money for a graduation party at Colonia High School. She stole $1,771 from that project, prosecutors said, and used it to buy a shed for her son's home and a flat-screen TV. Fisco pleaded guilty on Dec. 1. She'll get two years of probation, paid back the money, lost her job and is barred from future employment, prosecutors said. She was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Diane Pincus.
Fisco, an Edison resident, had been a teacher for 36 years. She was originally charged in 2014.
Ledesma got five years of probation and had to pay back $18,582 for stealing from the Parent Teachers Organization at the Von E. Mauger Middle School in Middlesex Borough, according to authorities. She was treasurer and president of the organization, but not a public employee.
She used the PTO money to make purchases at liquor stores, on Amazon.com, at a hardware store and at restaurants, none of them related to the PTO, prosecutors said.
Koche got four years of probation for stealing $1,340 from the same PTO in a separate theft, prosecutors said. She served as vice president of the PTO. She'll pay back the money she stole, according to authorities. Koche lost her job as a custodian at the school and is barred from future public employment.
Ledesma and Koche were sentenced by Superior Court Judge James Mulvihill.
"Citizens who donate should always demand an accounting of where the funds are spent in an effort to combat fraud and abuse," Prosecutor Andrew Carey said in a news release. "Where such fiscal corruption is suspected, the police should be contacted as soon as possible and provided with available documentation. Law enforcement is always most effective when there is active cooperation with the public."
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.