Jan 24, 2024 By Jon Andreassi 3 min read

Marianna’s former tax collector was sentenced Monday to house arrest and probation after she pleaded guilty to stealing from the borough and taxpayers.

Erica Pinkney, 39, began working at Marianna as the borough secretary in 2017, and was appointed to fill the vacant tax collector job in June 2018. The position of tax collector is normally an elected one.

A federal judge sentenced Pinkney to 90 days of home detention and two years of probation.

According to a press release from the Department of Justice, U.S. District Judge Scott Hardy said that Pinkney had committed a “serious offense” and “eroded public trust” in Marianna before handing down the sentence.

The indictment against Pinkney states she used borough credit cards to make personal purchases, and then used money collected for taxes and utilities to pay off the credit card bills. She pleaded guilty to mail fraud in September.

According to the indictment, in July 2019 Pinkney mailed a check for $2,100 from Marianna’s tax collector account to the credit card company.

Another hearing will be held in April to determine how much Pinkney will owe in restitution.

When Pinkney entered her guilty plea in September, Marianna council President Jeremy Berardinelli called it “a very serious and alarming matter for the borough.”

“This incident put our community in great financial distress. We are pleased justice is being pursued,” Berardinelli said at the time. “The borough has implemented many safeguards to try to prevent these types of losses in the future. This council is committed to fiscal responsibility and oversight. We hope this will now bring closure to the residents of Marianna Borough.”

Berardinelli and Marianna Mayor Anita Kadlecek emailed a joint statement Tuesday afternoon about the impact of the theft.

“Crimes like these are devastating to small communities like ours with limited resources. Those still on council had to bear the burden of countless hours, unpaid, on top of assisting law enforcement with this investigation,” reads the statement. “We would like to thank the FBI and the federal prosecutors for bringing this to light, and making sure justice was served.”

Pinkney was fired as borough secretary in September 2019 after she refused to participate in an investigation into missing financial records, as Marianna did not have an accurate accounting of who had paid property taxes that year. State police began investigating her the following year. Though she had lost her job as secretary, she remained in the position of tax collector.

However, when Marianna took her to court in 2020 over the missing records, Washington County Judge Katherine B. Emery said Pinkney “abandoned” the tax collector post. Pinkney claimed to believe her firing extended to both jobs.