EASTON, Pa. — A Northampton County judge sentenced former Hellertown police chief Robert Shupp on Wednesday to a maximum of 23 months in prison for stealing more than $40,000 from the borough.
Shupp will spend at least nine months in Northampton County Prison, and also pay $10,000 in fines. He already paid the borough $41,000 in restitution.
In March, Shupp pleaded guilty to charges of theft by taking, theft by deception and forgery.
According to investigators, he stole nearly $20,000 of cash from a police department safe and forged documents requesting roughly $22,000 in cash for nonexistent drug investigations.
Initially, prosecutors also charged Shupp with receiving more than $81,000 in pay for roughly 1,600 hours he falsely claimed he worked.
Prosecutors dropped those charges ahead of Shupp’s guilty plea.
Shupp also will have to complete three years of probation following his prison term.
More than a dozen of Shupp’s friends and family members filled the courtroom Wednesday; four of them, including Shupp’s wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, testified on his behalf.
They described Shupp as a caring, generous, and loving husband, father and community member who made a mistake. He has taken responsibility for his actions, they said, and has been working to atone for his crimes.
In a statement to the court, Shupp described how the charges have harmed his relationships, reputation and personal life.
“I wake up every day and this is the first thing I think about,” said Shupp. “I took a reputation of kindness, of trustworthiness, that I’ll never get back.”
Shupp offered little explanation of why he took more than $40,000 of borough funds, aside from oblique references to political pressure from the borough.
“Unfortunately, your honor, I have always thought or believed that the road to happiness is paved in gold and dollar bills,” Shupp told the court.
Assistant District Attorney Robert Eyer, the prosecutor trying Shupp’s case, countered that Shupp did not make a mistake, but rather engaged in a pattern of unlawful behavior over several years.
“You don’t get to store up character and reputation while at the same time engaging in criminal conduct,” said Eyer.
Eyer called Liz Thompson, a member of the Hellertown Borough Council, to testify to the impact Shupp’s theft had on the borough.
At first, Thompson would have described Shupp in virtually the same glowing terms as his friends and family, she said. But by using his position as the borough’s top law enforcement officer to enrich himself, said Thompson, Shupp caused “grave harm” to the borough and its residents.
Shupp, his supporters and his attorney, Gary Asteak, asked Common Pleas Judge John Morganelli to impose a sentence of probation and community service instead of prison time.
Though Morganelli found that Shupp was sincere in his repose for having stolen the money, and was unlikely to commit another crime, Morganelli said that letting Shupp off without prison time would “depreciate the seriousness” of the offenses he admitted to.
Morganelli said he was having a hard time understanding why Shupp – who, according to pre-sentencing evaluations, had no mental health issues, drug addictions or other maladies which could explain a need for cash – chose to repeatedly steal from his employer.
“It’s a very perplexing case that we have here,” said Morganelli. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me, the ‘why’ of this.”
The best answer Morganelli could come to, he said, is that Shupp took the money “because he could get away with it.”
