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David J. Bertnagel

Last January, the FBI arrested then-Plymouth Finance Director David J. Bertnagel and charged him with stealing more than $800,000 from the town between 2011 and 2014. A month later, Mr. Bertnagel, who was hired in 2008, pleaded guilty to theft from a local government receiving federal funds and to filing a false tax return. He was formally fired upon entering the plea.

Mr. Bertnagel was back in U.S. District Court today, May 22. Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer ordered him to prison for 30 months, despite prosecutors’ request that Mr. Bertnagel be locked up for 37 months. When released, Mr. Bertnagel will be on probation. He must make full restitution, perform 1,500 hours of community service and undergo outpatient counseling. The former finance chief told Judge Meyer, “I still can’t fathom why I did what I did. It was wrong, very wrong.” Read more about today’s events here, courtesy of the Republican-American, The Hartford Courant and The Associated Press.

It certainly is a good thing that justice has been served. However, as we will argue in a soon-to-be-published editorial, Plymouth government must take care to learn the lessons of the Bertnagel debacle. The thefts almost certainly would not have occurred had the town operated under smarter accounting procedures.

There already are grounds for cautious optimism that Plymouth is taking a new direction. In the aftermath of Mr. Bertnagel’s arrest, Mayor David V. Merchant proposed a number of positive changes to finance operations.

With any luck, Mayor Merchant’s moves have inaugurated a new era of accountability in Plymouth. Taxpayers were the ultimate victims of Mr. Bertnagel’s corruption, and they deserve nothing but the best of efforts to ensure there is no re-run.


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