Cheryl Saltmarsh of Boscawen will serve about 40 days in jail and four months of home confinement for stealing nearly $70,000 from the Penacook-Boscawen Water Precinct while she was its bookkeeper, a judge decided yesterday. She also must perform 150 hours of community service and serve a year of probation.

Saltmarsh, 43, the wife of Capt. Craig Saltmarsh of the Merrimack County Sheriff's Department, pleaded guilty yesterday to one felony count of theft by unauthorized taking in Merrimack County Superior Court. She took the money, according to her lawyer, Nicholas Brodich, to compensate for a significant drop in her salary and an increase in the couple's mortgage payments.

The sentence would have been far harsher, Judge Carol Ann Conboy said, had Cheryl Saltmarsh not admitted her crime, accepted full responsibility and repaid all the stolen money before she was charged. The sentence was more than the 30 days - served on weekends - the defense wanted but less than the year in jail the state attorney general's office requested.

Through tears, both Saltmarsh and her husband said her crime nearly broke up their family and has caused pain they've never known. The couple have three children, ages 5, 9 and 13, and have been married nearly 15 years.

"I've devoted my life to doing the right thing," Craig Saltmarsh, who has been in law enforcement for many years, told Conboy. "And this is extremely hard."

He paused to collect himself and said, "I want to show my children that you support your loved ones no matter what. I hope they will remember . . . how strong their parents have been through a most difficult time."

Cheryl Saltmarsh said telling her husband what she had done was the hardest moment of her life.

"I am a good person, and I made a mistake," she said. "I apologize to everybody that I hurt. I apologize to the (precinct) commissioners and everyone who's lost their trust in me."

Saltmarsh went to work for the precinct in March 2004, shortly after she was laid off from her longtime job as a transcriptionist for a court-reporting service, Brodich said. The switch dropped her yearly salary to about $25,000 from about $40,000, he said, and coincided with a climb in the couple's adjustable rate mortgage.

Brodich said Saltmarsh, who managed the family's finances and kept their home in order, internalized the stresses in order to spare her husband concern. She began stealing from the precinct in April 2006 to pay for everyday expenses by writing herself a check and using a precinct signature stamp to forge commissioners' signatures.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Baker of the state attorney general's office said Saltmarsh wrote herself 29 checks between April 2006 and March 2008, when an accountant audited the precinct's books and discovered irregularities. The checks ranged from $500 to $4,000, Baker said, and totaled $69,375.

Saltmarsh confessed her thefts to the precinct's commissioners once she realized the accountant would discover her wrongdoing, Brodich said. She also confessed to state prosecutors and, within five weeks, repaid the precinct the full amount, Brodich said.

Saltmarsh was indicted 14 months later by the attorney general's office, which took the case from the county attorney's office to avoid a conflict of interest, given that Saltmarsh's husband works for the county.

Baker said she considered Saltmarsh's confessions, remorse and restitution in requesting a yearlong jail sentence; the crime can be punished by 7½ to 15 years in prison.

"(This) wasn't one bad day or one bad decision," Baker said, "but a series of thefts. She stole from her employer and from the public."

Single page