East Haven Woman Gets 3 Years Probation, $20K Fine In Fraud Case

EAST HAVEN, CT —A federal court judge sentenced Catherine Finkle, 58, of East Haven to three years of probation, the first six months of which Finkle must spend in home confinement, for stealing more than $38,000 from a Board of Education child care program, the Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced Thursday.

Finkle had pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in February.

U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill also ordered Finkle to pay a $20,000 fine, and to perform 50 hours of community of service while on supervised release.

According to federal prosecutors, relying on court documents and statements made in court, the FBI investigation found that from January 2000 to November 2018, Finkle was the East Haven Board of Education Program Director for the School Age Child Care Program, commonly called the Little Jackets Program.

As program director, she had access to the program’s bank accounts, and handled the tuition payments on behalf of the program. Prosecutors said that from January 2011 to November 2018, she "defrauded" the East Haven Board of Education by taking more than $38,000 in tuition payments, in the form of money orders and cash, that had been made for students in the Little Jackets Program and then "diverted the payments for her own benefit."

In addition to the fine, she must also pay restitution of $38,554.50.

Her husband, John T. Finkle III, a East Haven board of education member in 2018 who voted against referring forensic audit findings to law enforcement, pleaded guilty in a $3 million fraud scheme in 2019 and was sentenced to serve two years in federal prison.