The former finance chief of a New Jersey nonprofit will spend eight years in state prison for taking more than $2.5 million from her employer, the state’s attorney general announced late last week.
Colleen Witten, formerly the CFO and comptroller of Occupational Training Center Services of Burlington County, New Jersey, has also been ordered to pay back $2.58 million in restitution to the nonprofit, plus more than $185,000 to the state’s taxation division. At the time of her sentencing on Nov. 12, the amount still owed to the nonprofit was about $1.19 million, according to a news release issued by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office.
Platkin’s release referred to Witten’s former employer only as a “Burlington County-based not-for-profit company” and did not mention the organization by name. However, local newspaper the Courier-Post identified the organization as Occupational Therapy Center Services of Burlington County, which also goes by OTC Services. A 990 form filed on behalf of that organization listed Colleen Witten as “controller,” with a compensation of just over $128,000 in the 2023 tax year.
OTC Services, which marked its 60th anniversary in 2024, provides job training and day programs for individuals with disabilities.
Per Platkin’s office, Witten had pleaded guilty on June 18 to a criminal charge that included one count of second-degree money laundering and one count of failure to pay state taxes. From May 2019 through March 2024, Witten stole $2.58 million from the organization, she admitted at her plea hearing. She was able to do that by altering corporate board minutes to give herself the authority to open a bank account in her employer’s name and then using that account and others to “divert money for her personal benefit,” the attorney general’s office said.
During that time, Witten served as comptroller and eventually as CFO.
“Colleen Witten admitted that she used the stolen funds for personal credit card expenses, renovations to her primary home, the purchase of additional residences in Tennessee and Newfield, New Jersey, and the purchase of vehicles, including a recreational vehicle, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and a Corvette Stingray sports car,” Platkin’s news release stated.
Witten also admitted to laundering money through a landscaping business she ran with her husband.
“This defendant stole funds from a non-profit that works to help adults with disabilities,” said New York Division of Criminal Justice Director Theresa Hilton in the news release. “She now knows the true price of trying to enrich herself through crime.”
Brendan Kavanagh, who represented Witten in the case, described her as “very remorseful,” the Courier-Post reported. Kavanagh didn’t immediately reply to CFO.com for a request for comment on Monday.
On the same day of the defendant’s plea hearing in June, her husband Allan Witten had pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property from the same organization. In August, he was sentenced to three years in state prison.
