SEATTLE — Juanita Serrato will spend three months behind bars for stealing more than $55,000 from Bethany Lutheran Church over the course of nearly seven years.
The 69-year-old Seattle woman admitted she withdrew more than $46,000 in cash and charged $17,000 more on a church debit card for a laptop, groceries, gasoline, even a spa treatment -- all while acting as church treasurer.
On Friday, Serrato apologized before she was sentenced to 90 days in the King County Jail. “There were mistakes I made along the way that I should never have made,” she said.
Serrato had been a member of the Green Lake-area congregation and an active volunteer for four decades. Because of the violation of trust and position, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Darren Thompson asked Superior Court Judge Judith Ramseyer for an exceptional sentence of six months behind bars. “The defendant put a new furnace in her house. She got her car repaired. All at the church’s expense,” Thompson told the court.
Serrato's attorney argued for home detention. “I just don’t think that going to jail is going to be a real deterrent to anybody in this case,” Jeff Williams said. “She’s not going to be getting a job anywhere, handling money for anybody; church or otherwise.”
The pastor of Bethany Lutheran didn’t believe home detention fit the crime. “The church does not seek punishment or revenge, so I would urge avoidance of any kind of lengthy sentence,” Pastor Annette Andrews-Lux told the judge. Yet “house arrest does not seem to carry the weight of consequence commensurate with the crime that endured over seven years.”
After hearing all arguments, Judge Ramseyer ordered Serrato to jail for 90 days, the high end of the standard range.
Serrato will also have to pay back $55,299.05.