White Ohio woman gets probation for $250K theft, while Black woman jailed for stealing $40K

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A case of starkly disparate sentences for two women convicted of stealing public money in Ohio is highlighting the way racism works in the criminal justice system, advocates say. 

A white woman in Cuyahoga County was sentenced two years of probation on Monday for stealing nearly $248,000 US from the village of Chagrin Falls. 

The very next day, a Black woman in the same county was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing $42,000 from Maple Heights City Schools. 

The discrepancy was brought to light by reporter Cory Shaffer in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and its sister publication, Cleveland.com.

"God only knows what would have happened if the sentencings would not have been in such close proximity to each other," Danielle Sydnor, president of the Cleveland Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told As It Happens guest host Nil Köksal.

"We wouldn't even probably be having this conversation today, because this would have gone under the radar and been just the normal course of business of what happens in our criminal legal system every single day."

Black people convicted of crimes in the U.S. receive, on average, sentences about 20 per cent longer than white people who commit the same offences, according to a report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Probation for 22 counts 

According to Cleveland.com, Debbie Bosworth, who is white, was a clerk with the Chagrin Falls village utilities and building departments when she stole $248,000 over the course of 20 years by pocketing cash from residents' utility payments, then covering her tracks by moving money from the building department to the utility department. 

She was indicted on 22 charges, including multiple counts of third-degree theft. She pleaded no contest — meaning she neither contested the charges, nor admitted guilt.

Under Ohio law, the state can seize a public employee's pension money if they are convicted of theft while in office. Bosworth paid back some of the stolen money from her $200,000 pension, and covered the remainder by cutting a cheque on the day of her sentence. 

The prosecutor in the case sought a jail sentence for Bosworth, but didn't specify how long. The maximum sentence she could receive was 63 years.

Judge Hollie Gallagher, who is white, opted instead to sentence her probation because she'd paid back the stolen money, and because the mayor of the village didn't ask for jail time in his letter to the court. 

Jail time for a single count 

The following day, the same court heard the case of Karla Hopkins, who is Black. According to Cleveland.com, she was a secretary and executive assistant at Maple Heights High School when she pocketed $42,000 worth of dues and fees she'd collected from students and teachers.

Hopkins pleaded guilty to a single charge of third-degree felony theft. Her lawyer argued that she was suffering from mental health issues and a gambling addiction when she stole the money, but has since received treatment and gone through a job placement program. 

Unlike Bosworth, she hasn't yet paid back the full amount of what she owes. She told the court she emptied the $20,000 in her pension to pay her bills after she was fired. She has since paid $5,000 toward her restitution.

The prosecutor sought a prison sentence of between nine and 12 months, arguing she "stole from kids." The defence argued that if she went to jail, she would lose her job and be unable to pay back the stolen money.

Judge Rick Bell, who is white, sentenced her to 18 months after scolding her for dipping into her pension. 

Judges cannot comment on their cases beyond what they say in court. 

In a written statement to the Plain Dealer, court spokesperson Darren Toms said: "Every case that comes before the Court has a unique set of circumstances that are taken into consideration at sentencing."

Calls for transparency in sentencing

"This is a story of two things. It's a story of race and it's a story of means," Sydnor said. 

Hopkins, she argues, was punished for not having the means to pay back the stolen money, which Bosworth was more easily able to do. 

"Individuals who are poor and innocent are more likely to spend time in jail and be incarcerated than people who are affluent and guilty," she said.

"And in the United States, this disparity of wealth and resources really becomes illuminated when you look along racial lines. And so people who are poor that are going into the system, who are poor and Black, tend to end up with legal sentences that are much more heavy-handed than someone who is white and affluent."

Sydnor is joining other activists, Black leaders and former judges in calling for more transparency in the justice system, so disparities like this don't fly under the radar.

"The reform that we're asking for is that judges are required to enter their sentencing into a database that would be searchable, where there's an opportunity to start to compare and contrast within one judge's docket," she said. 

It's the same solution suggested decades ago in a 1999 report by the Commission on Racial Fairness, which found Black people in Ohio were sentenced life in prison, or the death penalty, at a "grossly disproportionate rate."

Such a database already exists in the form of a voluntary pilot program launched last year by the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission.

However, only 10 of the county's 34 judges have signed up, including the one who oversaw the Hopkins case.

Community leaders in Ohio are calling on all of the county's judges to join the project

"We need to have one centralized place where we can evaluate this to get the kind of reform that we need," Sydnor said. 

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with  Danielle Sydnor produced by Niza Lyapa Nondo.