Embezzler gets 6 months for probation violation

MARQUETTE - A Hancock woman was sentenced to six months in prison and four years of supervised release this week in U.S. District Court in Marquette for violating the terms of her probation for embezzling from the Michigan Education Association office in Hancock.

Susan DuLong was sentenced to 30 days in jail in August in 97th District Court for illegally using her company's credit card. DuLong was still in a seven-year probation period for embezzling more than $160,000 from the Hancock MEA office, for which she was convicted in 2007 and served 30 days in jail.

The probation violation is a three-year felony; DuLong's advisory sentencing range was four to 10 months.

In a letter to the court, DuLong's lawyer, Paul Peterson, an assistant federal public defender, said this sentence, unlike DuLong's previous two, had caused her to realize her life would never be the same.

"... Only now, for the first time, does (DuLong) truly recognize that her life and the lives of those around her have changed forever and that she must now also change or face continuing legal difficulties in the future," he said.

The sentence imposed Monday, Peterson said, will be "the exclamation point to that belated, but essential, lesson."

The U.S. District Attorney's office had no comment by press time.

In a prepared statement, DuLong said she was hoping to maintain custody of her children.

"They have already been through so much due to my incarceration in the summer, their father leaving town so suddenly, and now having to deal with this," she said. "They are very afraid that they will not be able to see me before they have to leave with their father. They are also afraid they will never see the only family they have if they are forced to move."

Her husband, Kenneth DuLong, wrote to the court that he supports her bid for custody, saying she has been a good mother to his two children.

"I know Susan has done something very wrong and needs to be punished for what she did," he said. "... I can only ask that you please take some consideration in what she is trying to do for her children and in trying to better herself with schooling to be able to get a job and pay back the restitution she needs to."

Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com.