Port Angeles, Florida man sentenced for embezzling from school PTO, church

A Port Angeles man who pleaded guilty to embezzling money from the Stevens Middle School Parent Teacher Organization has been sentenced to five months in jail.Timothy D. Walsh, 46, was sentenced Thursday in Clallam County Superior Court.He also was sentenced to one month of electronic home monitoring and was ordered to pay more than $63,000 in restitution to several people.
Walsh was charged in March 2008 after writing $5,000 in checks to himself and attempting to deposit more than $18,000 into his personal account, according to court documents.
Eventually more than $63,000 was discovered missing from the organization, a local church that police did not name and from a travel agency he owned, Port Angeles Police Detective Jason Viada said.
At the time of the embezzlement, he was the president of the Parent Teacher Organization.
Walsh agreed to plead guilty in February 2009 to first-degree theft and two counts of first-degree attempted theft, Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said.
The agreement was that if he could pay back $63,000 to organizations from which he had embezzled, he would receive a lighter sentence, Kelly said.Walsh was given more than a year to sell his house, Kelly said.
He has not repaid the money, so he will pay it back over time after he serves his five months in jail, Kelly said.The money missing from the PTO was discovered in late February 2008 when Walsh gave a box of checks to the treasurer, Harriet Shafer, according to court documents.
Four checks were missing, with one of them made out to Walsh on Feb. 28 and another made out to him on March 6, the documents said.
The other two checks remain missing.
He also withdrew $10,569.50 from the account in a check made out to Southwest Airlines, the documents said.