Ex-Maine bank worker appeals theft sentence

AUBURN – A Westbrook woman who spent $18,000 of the nearly $162,000 she stole from a bank on a gambling trip is appealing her sentence.

Diana L. Moynihan-Stevens, 34, pleaded guilty to theft by unauthorized taking, a Class B felony, and was sentenced last summer in Androscoggin County Superior Court to five years in prison with all but 18 months suspended, plus three years of probation.

Moynihan-Stevens was ordered to pay back $96,434 after serving her prison sentence. She already had returned $65,000.

Court records showed she also spent: $8,000 on a trip to Jamaica; $9,000 on a car; $8,000 on furniture; $3,000 on a computer; and $3,000 on Christmas gifts.

In her appeal, she said the judge misapplied state law in determining her basic sentence and was wrong in setting her maximum sentence after considering factors that would lower or raise the basic sentence. The judge also should have suspended a greater portion of the final sentence, she said.

Moynihan-Stevens worked at TD Banknorth in Auburn in 2005 when bank officials notified local police of an internal theft, court records showed. Bank officials discovered she had embezzled $161,865.78 from customers’ accounts over a six-month period.