Two long-serving clerks of courts in side-by-side counties have pleaded guilty to similar crimes — embezzling public funds and using them for their personal use, and both are scheduled to find out the consequences of their actions during the week of Nov. 11.

Former Carbon County Clerk William McGinley, 61, of Jim Thorpe, admitted taking $44,000 in county court funds during a five-year period to feed a gambling habit.

Former Schuylkill County Clerk Stephen Lukach Jr., 69, of the Lake Hauto section of Nesquehoning, pleaded guilty to federal charges, with prosecutors saying that he stole funds from several court accounts then tried to cover his tracks. They said he used the money to make car payments and pay for other expenses for himself and family members.

Having served for 27 years in the row office, Lukach was elected in 1987, then re-elected to an additional six four-year terms before abruptly retiring in 2014 when state police and the FBI raided his office in the county courthouse in Pottsville. It took four years, however, to complete the investigation and charge Lukach.

McGinley was in office for 28 years before he abruptly retired on May 1, 2018, after having been re-elected without opposition the previous November.

Prosecutors say that McGinley reimbursed the county for the money he took, along with another $7,500 in restitution money. After McGinley appeared in court on Aug. 12 to enter his guilty plea, he was ordered to return for sentencing on Nov. 15.

What taxpayers will never recoup will be the thousands of dollars the counties had to lay out to clean up the messes and disarray that McGinley and Lukach left behind in the clerks’ offices. It has taken months to sort out the confusion, and things are not yet back to normal.

The biggest penalty McGinley will suffer, in addition to the loss of his reputation, is the loss of his county pension, which amounts to nearly $2,500 a month. Thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Tom Wolf in March, the county commissioners were able to yank McGinley’s pension.

The bill Wolf signed cuts off pension benefits from elected officials as well as public employees who commit a job-related felony or one punishable by more than five years in prison.

The county also plans to go after interest funds that had accrued in McGinley’s pension account over his long tenure and which he withdrew after he retired. The amount is said to be in the neighborhood of $100,000. Whether the county can do this legally is still up in the air.

Just about everyone I have spoken to said what a shame it is that this has happened. They describe McGinley as a “good guy” who, they said, seemed to have the well-being of his community and the county at heart.

But any thoughts of sympathy should be tempered by the words of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro who said, “The people of Carbon County elected the defendant to his position of public trust for nearly three decades, but he abused that trust by stealing from the funds that he was supposed to oversee.”

Unlike McGinley, who appeared in county court, Lukach entered his guilty plea on Aug. 8 in federal court in Scranton, confirming that he had tampered with the mails and had created more than a half-dozen fictitious case files to throw investigators off the track to the fact that he was stealing at least $15,000 in public funds.

As the longest-serving elected official in Schuylkill, Lukach was a courthouse fixture who was able to use his longevity and connections in the office to figure out how to game the system.

The current Clerk of Courts Maria Casey said a “good old boys’ network” protected Lukach from detection for years. That’s one reason why row officers need term limits. I have recommended no more than three four-year terms.

In ordering a presentence investigation, the federal judge hearing Lukach’s case has set sentencing for the week of Nov. 11, the same week McGinley will hear his sentence.

Since Lukach’s case involves the more serious federal charges, he faces a 40-year sentence in federal prison, three years of additional supervision after he is released and a fine of up to a half-million dollars. The Schuylkill commissioners have not publicly addressed Lukach’s pension situation, although, given the new state law, his pension is subject to the same fate as McGinley’s.

In a statement during Lukach’s plea, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Consiglio told the judge: “The defendant abused his position of trust.”

This in my mind is at the heart of these outrageous actions by these two former officials whom the public trusted with their votes, returning them to office time after time.

Regardless of the cynicism at work throughout the land, honesty is still in style.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com