METRO DIGEST ||

St. Rose celebration

GIRARD

St. Rose Church “End of Summer Celebration” is set for 5 to 10 p.m. today in the school gymnasium, 68 E. Main St. It will coincide with the eighth annual Girard City Parade, which steps off at 7 p.m. A pizza cook-off, with pizzas from local restaurants and businesses, will take place before and after the parade. Other festival foods will be available. Raffle tickets will be sold. Music will be by the Eric Rafoth Band.

Cassini embezzlement

PITTSBURGH

A New Castle, Pa., resident has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing three years of false income-tax returns in the theft of about $700,000 from a South Hills car dealership, where she was office manager. Deborah Cassini, 61, of West Laurel Avenue, pleaded guilty to four criminal counts before U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Bissoon, who will sentence her at 10 a.m. Nov. 20. Cassini’s embezzlement scheme included 163 on-line payments to her personal credit cards from the bank account of Three Rivers Volkswagen, issuing herself extra pay 98 times, skimming cash hundreds of times and concealing the thefts with false accounting entries, the U.S. attorney said. The crimes Cassini admitted carry up to 89 years in prison and a fine up to $1,750,000. The case was investigated by the IRS and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Heroin case sentence

CLEVELAND

A 32-year-old Youngstown man recently was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy that brought heroin from Chicago and elsewhere to Youngstown, the U.S. attorney said. U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. imposed the sentence recently on Alexis Perez, who previously was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin and related charges. Perez forfeited $3,520 in cash and will be on supervised release for 10 years after prison. The case was investigated between March 2009 and March 2012 by the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force.

Arson conviction

YOUNGSTOWN

A city woman was convicted Thursday in federal court of setting fire to a South Side rental property to collect insurance money, the U.S. Attorney said. Latasha Curtis, 33, was convicted of setting fire Oct. 19, 2013, to 75 Hilton Ave. in a four-day jury trial before U.S. District Court Judge Benita Pearson, who revoked her bond and will sentence her at 10 a.m. Nov. 13.

State Farm paid $67,916 after the insurance claim on the property was submitted. The Youngstown FBI office investigated the case.