Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Editor’s note:The Daily Globe is counting down the Gogebic Range’s top five stories of 2018 each day through Monday, New Year’s Eve. The editorial department staff sat down and came up with its annual list, naming the Ironwood Township treasurer’s embezzlement case as the third-place story of the year.
By RICHARD JENKINS
Former township treasurer Jyl Olson-DeRosso was charged with 10 felony counts last year related to forgery and embezzlement stemming from her time in office. In 2018, township residents learned her fate, as well as the scope of her embezzlement from the township.
Olson-DeRosso pleaded guilty or no contest to all 10 counts she was charged with in March. She appeared in Gogebic County Circuit Court March 28 to plead guilty to five counts of forgery, embezzlement by a public official, using public money for her own use and diversion of public money by a public official. She entered no contest pleas to refusing to turn over records to a successor and destruction of public records.
The charges against her stem from 2011 to November 2016, when Olson-DeRosso lost her re-election bid to current treasurer Maria Graser.
Olson-DeRosso was sentenced in May to 38 months in prison on the embezzlement by a public official charge, as well as shorter sentences on the other nine felonies. She will serve the 10 sentences concurrently, however, Michigan law requires she serves the entire 38-month sentence.
“The defendant stands before this court for sentencing on 10 separate felonies. The defendant stands before this court owing the charter township of Ironwood close to $1.4 million. The defendant stands here having affected in excess of 20 victims,” Judge Michael Pope said while imposing his sentence. “She violated her position of public trust. She abused her power. She breached her fiduciary relationship with her fellow officials, not to mention the citizens of the community. She ignored her sworn duty. She misused her occupation. She used her position to justify her conduct.
“She did so over the course of ... at least five years.”
Along with her prison sentence, Olson-DeRosso has to pay almost $1.4 million.
Pope ordered $1,398,654 in restitution in May following a presentation from the township’s forensic auditor regarding the amount Olson-DeRosso stole.
Pope ordered a civil judgement in the same amount on the township’s behalf in October.
Michigan law prohibits dual recovery, meaning Olson-DeRosso will only have to pay that figure once rather than paying both the restitution and civil judgement.
While the civil judgement, along with Olson-DeRosso’s decision to drop her countersuit against the township in July, concluded the legal process; township officials continued to deal with the financial fallout from Olson-DeRosso’s crimes.
The township continued to await payment from its insurance and bonding companies into the December budget process, which left the township owing several other local entities tax money.
The township owes Gogebic County, Ironwood Area Schools and the Gogebic-Ontonagon Intermediate School District a total of $820,409 in tax money Olson-DeRosso collected on their behalf but never passed on to the appropriate entities.
This amount is included in her restitution payment, according to township officials, but the township has yet to receive the funds.
The debt has been discussed during the the 2019 budget process, with some arguing the township should proactively pay the units of government and others saying the township has been advised to leave that with the insurance company and continue with business as usual.
With 2019 here and no payments received, the fallout from the case will almost certainly continue to make headlines into the new year.
