Terry Gaines Sentenced

By Dan Rattiner

03/06/2009

Terry Gaines was sentenced to one to three years in prison last week. She was Montauk born and raised, went to the Montauk School and then East Hampton High School and for 10 years she worked as the bookkeeper of the Montauk Fire Department, where her father-in-law was the fire commissioner. As bookkeeper she was also one of the directors of the department. She had check signing privileges.

However, in the first four years of this decade, she methodically and slowly stole a total of $510,000 from that organization, mostly by approving payments to fictitious companies that she set up herself, by direct fire department credit card charges and even by writing herself checks for "reimbursements."

She used the money to go to go gambling in Las Vegas and Foxwoods, to take extended vacations, to buy a home in Montauk for herself and to pay for the tuition for her son's private school. Most people in town thought she must have inherited money. She hadn't.

Gaines went to trial a year and a half ago, but it ended after a few days when she agreed to a plea bargain. She would serve three to nine years in prison, or she would sell the house and with the money reimburse the Department for the full $510,000 and get her sentence reduced to one to three years. In that case, and with good behavior in prison, she would serve just nine months.

The house, which was appraised at about $550,000 back then, never sold. Soon it was apparent it would never sell anytime soon for more than $510,000. In the end, her mother willed her a family owned home in Southampton and THAT sold for the required $510,000.

At the sentencing, the judge asked Gaines if she had anything to say and what she said was that she had not stolen $510,000 but only about $200,000 after which the judge asked her lawyer if she wanted to withdraw the plea bargain. She thought about it a moment, and then said no. And so the trial was concluded.

There are those in town who I talked to who said that the year and a half of stress that she had gone through wondering if she'd serve three to nine or one to three had been quite a punishment all by itself and it was good that it was over with so she could get on with her life.

Others told me that based on what she said at the sentencing, it seemed to them that she needed an attitude adjustment. Perhaps she will get something like that in prison. One hopes that she does.