33 months for court employee who stole $433K

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell had just one question Wednesday before he sent William Rullo to prison for nearly three years.

Why?

Why would a respected public employee with a good, $60,184-a-year job and a family systematically loot the court system of $433,000 over a decade?

Rullo, 47, a 22-year procurement worker in the Philadelphia court system, did not have an answer.

"I could give you an excuse but I don't have one," Rullo told Dalzell.

It wasn't drugs, alcohol, gambling, it was a habit of stealing. "I want to use the term addiction, but it just caught up with me," Rullo said. "I kept saying this is the last time. But it wasn't."

Dalzell said he believed that Rullo was remorseful, but still needed to impose the minimum 33-month prison term recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

"You not only committed a violation of the public trust . . . but it was a court that, as you well know, is dedicated to justice," Dalzell said.

The judge cited the "corrosive" nature of public corruption on public perception and on Rullo's former coworkers.

"I have to deter other people from doing anything like what happened here," Dalzell added.

Dalzell allowed Rullo to remain free until Jan. 15, when he is to begin serving his term in a prison to be designated. When released, Rullo will be on three years supervised release and begin repaying the city courts the $433,000 he stole.

Rullo, of Levittown, pleaded guilty to mail fraud involving a scheme that ran from 1999 to 2010, when the theft was discovered and he was fired.

Rullo worked for the city's First Judicial District - the formal name for the city court system - as a procurement technician. He had broad authority to order products and services for the courts and ultimately got a court-system credit card in his name.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney William Inden, Rullo's first fraud was buying monthly service for eight mobile phones used by family and friends.

In 2005 Rullo was, in his official capacity, buying city parking passes for judges and court officials. But he also spent $35,000 for parking passes he resold to friends and coworkers, and bought at least $1,300 worth of SEPTA tokens that he used himself or sold at half-price to coworkers.

Inden said the rest of the money was spent on "personal splurges" - weekends at resort hotels, for instance, and 36 plasma and LCD televisions.

Defense attorney Brian J. McMonagle urged Dalzell to sentence Rullo below the recommended sentence. McMonagle cited Rullo's decision to cooperate and confess as soon as he was caught.

"He did not blame others," McMonagle said. "He fell down and then did what a good citizen does: he tried to get back up."

McMonagle said Rullo was devoted to his two daughters, 14 and 10, and helped care for his 70-year-old widowed mother.

Inden, however, said Rullo deserved to be sentenced within the 33- to 41-month guideline range. Inden argued that Rullo's scheme was long-lived and involved bogus documents and forging several judges' signatures to cover the personal purchases.