Montco D.A.: Linsinbigler embezzled $168,000

The longtime head of Montgomery County's fire and emergency-services training center has been charged with embezzling $168,000 from the agency over the last decade.

Robert Linsinbigler, who worked for Montgomery County for 32 years and became coordinator of what was then called the county fire academy in 1986, is accused of forging checks from agency bank accounts to pay his mortgage and other expenses.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said evidence suggested that the embezzlement reached back to the 1990s.

"This is just a stunning betrayal," Ferman said.

Linsinbigler, 54, of Norristown, was fired in February from the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Campus after other county staffers discovered problems in its accounts.

At the time, Ferman said, Linsinbigler admitted to writing about $16,000 in checks for personal use since 2006. However, investigators found that his check-writing off accounts opened by the Montgomery County Chiefs of Police Association and the Montgomery County Fire Advisory Board went back years earlier.

He is accused of forging checks to himself under other officials' names, as well as cashing agency checks that he claimed were used to pay firefighter skill evaluators. They, however, actually were being paid by Montgomery County Community College, with Linsinbigler pocketing the cash.

When he was fired, Linsinbigler was being paid $70,768 a year by Montgomery County. A court will determine whether he can collect retirement benefits, county spokesman John Corcoran said.

Linsinbigler was arraigned yesterday, and bail was set at $200,000.