The treasurer at a charity for fallen New York City police is accused of stealing about $410,000—including $1,400 for Barbra Streisand tickets, the New York Times reports. Lorraine Shanley, 68, was arrested Thursday and could face 30 years in prison. A volunteer treasurer at Survivors of the Shield, Shanley is accused of forging signatures, double-endorsing checks, and writing unauthorized checks "to pay for personal expenses and to distribute money to herself and family members," per a criminal complaint quoted by ABC News. She "allegedly capitalized on tragedy and monetized people’s generosity," say federal prosecutors in a statement. Over seven years, they say, she used the money for expenses like dental work and landscaping. She also allegedly spent it on her son's criminal defense.
Her son, Thomas Shanley, is serving time for plowing his SUV into a pole that killed a human-rights activist waiting at a Manhattan bus stop in 2014; Shanley evaded police for two months before being caught. "She betrayed the trust of the organization," says Kathleen Vigiano, the charity's board president. "We have widows who have been on a pension since the Sixties and it’s not that high. And that money could have gone to the kids’ educations, the special needs kids, the college kids." Shanley was charged with aggravated identity theft and let go on $100,000 bond. She shook her head and said nothing to reporters when she left court. Her husband, Officer Thomas Shanley, died in 1986 of a heart attack, per the New York Daily News. (More fraud stories.)
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