Philadelphia-area thief gets 21 years house arrest

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An office manager who admitted stealing $475,000 from her employer has been sentenced to 21 years of house arrest so she can work to repay it.

Lanette Sansoni’s unusual sentence came after her ex-boss said he was more interested in restitution than jail time, her lawyer said.

“This was just a creative compromise,” defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. said Thursday. “I think it will encourage her to pay it off, so the judge was pretty smart about it.”

Peruto, a veteran defense lawyer in the region, guessed the two-decade term may be a record for house arrest in Pennsylvania. State officials could not immediately confirm that.

Sansoni, 40, has repaid about $275,000 after selling her home in Warminster, just north of Philadelphia, and moving in with her mother. She will remain on house arrest until the remaining $200,000 is repaid to Kenneth Slomine, who owned JRS Settlement Services, a title company in Lower Moreland Township.

Montgomery County Judge Joseph A. Smyth on Wednesday set a payment schedule of $750 a month, which works out to about 21 years.

Sansoni can leave home to work but could go to jail if the payments stop. She has a job paying $700 a week, Peruto said, but he wouldn’t disclose what it is.