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Hoping to win a more lenient sentence, Frank Lucianna said that 57-year-old Patricia Slattery — now of Del Ray Beach, FL — took the money from REZ Connect Technology to feed a Percocet habit.
In addition to the prison term, the plea deal that Slattery struck with prosecutors requires her to repay the money, beginning with a lump sum of $47,500 that includes $5,000 from a 401K account, $30,000 currently in her attorney trust account and the $17,500 she posted for bail.
Slattery already owed $2,681 in restitution for a conviction in a similar crime against Trutone Recording Company of Hackensack from 2000 – 2002. In that case, Slattery was convicted of conspiring with the company’s comptroller to steal nearly $30,000. She spent 364 days in the Bergen County Jail and was ordered to repay $13,400.
Rez Connect Tech, which also does business as Travel Network and Vacation Central, was founded by Michael Brent in 1982 and quickly became known for a quick and efficient system linking travel agents to tour and cruise suppliers.
With offices on Sylvan Avenue, the company has done much of its work hosting websites that allow agents to immediately connect to restaurants, hotels, cruise lines, and tour operators and others and book reservations.
Executives at REZ Connect had thrown a retirement party for Slattery when they later discovered more than $200,000 gone. Englewood Cliffs police investigated, and she was later arrested and extradited from Florida on theft and money laundering charges.
Slattery had access to bank accounts and other online information and “invaded the various accounts to get money for her drug habit in amounts of $10,000 to $20,000 at a time,” Lucianna said.
At one point, she was taking 40 or more pills a day, the defense attorney said, requesting that Slattery be placed in a diversionary program through the county drug court.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor David Calviello argued against the move, saying that Slattery got less than a year in the earlier case but then committed a similar crime once again.
Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi called the plea deal fair, given how much Slattery stole and her previous conviction.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutors David Calviello, Nicholas Ostuni, defense attorney Frank Lucianna, Patricia Slattery (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
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