Ex-Bookkeeper Sentenced for Stealing from Ship Bottom Company

The former bookkeeper for a Ship Bottom hot tub firm who was convicted of siphoning company money to pay her bills for several years is headed to prison for up to five years.

Gina Harle, 57, was sentenced today in Toms River, according to information from the office of Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato. She was ordered to pay $52,946.09 in restitution to Hot Springs Spas of New Jersey LTD.

Harle's three-year sentence on a third-degree theft count is to run concurrently with a five-year term for a second-degree charge of computer theft.

The probe began in 2007 when the company owners confided suspicions of theft to Ship Bottom police. A forensic accounting audit substantiated their concerns, says Coronato spokesman Al Della Fave.

Harle was indicted in 2010. Prosecutors at trial successfully argued that Harle had used the company's credit card to pay her own bills, including $26,000 toward a Volvo, between 2004 and 2007.

The jury also accepted the prosecution's contention that Harle accessed a computer network to spend about $6,000 in company funds for her online bill payments between 2006 and 2007.