A while back, I told you about a treasurer who stole $362,000 from her First Presbyterian Church of Easton congregation, originally agreed to pay it back, but tried to use a loophole in the law to renege on the promise.

Well, I am happy to report that Northampton County Court Judge Emil Giordano was having none of it.

He recently denied the motion of Ann Marie Ballentine, 55, formerly of Palmer Township, to have the restitution order thrown out.

She and her attorney were attempting to cite a parallel between their case and the 2016 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case involving former state Rep. Mike Veon, D-Butler, in which the high court ruled that Veon did not need to make restitution to the state for $136,000 after being convicted of public corruption in Harrisburg’s infamous “Bonusgate” scandal, because only a person can be a “victim.”

This is the same argument that Scranton area businessman Robert Kearns made after stealing $832,000 from Bethlehem Township involving a streetlight scheme.

Kearns and a co-defendant sold many municipalities, including a number of others in the Times News area, a bill of goods by insisting they could save thousands, even millions, of dollars by buying streetlights instead of leasing them.

All of these defendants — Veon, Kearns and now Ballentine — essentially are saying that the state, a municipality and a church are not “victims”; only a person can be one.

That is the way the law reads, according to Supreme Court Justice David N. Wecht, who wrote the majority opinion in Veon’s favor.

Every relevant noun or pronoun, he wrote, “unequivocally describes a human being, not a government agency.” What really hurts, though, is that he opened the door to similar nongovernmental challenges such as Ballentine’s.

Where Judge Giordano gets our vote is his position that the Ballentine case is different from the “Bonusgate” case, although he admitted that his decision might be overturned by the Pennsylvania Superior Court to which Ballentine is likely to appeal.

“I don’t believe that a church and its members are similar to a government entity,” Giordano said.

After her arrest in 2014, the remorseful and contrite Ballentine wanted to make good on her promise to repay the money she had stolen, even if it was only at the rate of $75 a week, sometimes less.

Ballentine was sentenced to nine to 23 months on work release after pleading guilty to theft. She was paroled in September 2015, but she still owes about $350,000.

At her sentencing hearing four years ago, leaders and members of the First Presbyterian Church turned out in court on her behalf, asking the judge to go easy on this good woman who had made bad choices. The church’s former pastor told the judge they were seeking restitution, not retribution.

At the March 23 hearing, Arthur Charlton, the church’s clerk of session, told the judge that the impact of the theft was “devastating” to the church and curtailed its vigorous outreach program to the city’s poor and homeless population.

Two state senators, including Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, introduced legislation to close the wording loophole, but the Senate has not called the bill to the floor.

Even if it does, it very likely will not include cases already going through the court system.

We can only hope that the state appellate courts sustain Judge Giordano’s common-sense decision.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com