Bridgeport furniture store bookkeeper sentenced to county jail for stealing $1.2 million

Linda Mansi’s attorneys fought hard Thursday to keep her out of jail and have her sentenced to probation after she admitted to stealing $1.2 million from a Bridgeport office furniture company to pay for vacations, online gambling, and personal expenses.

But Montgomery County Court Judge Thomas Rogers saw no reason to give the Tuckerton, Ocean County, resident leniency.

Rogers noted that this was Mansi’s third conviction for theft, after she stole from two of her previous employers, and both times was sentenced only to probation. Her actions this time against the family-run Arnold’s Furniture were “unacceptable,” Rogers said, and warranted a harsher penalty.

Clearly, the judge said, she had not learned her lesson.

“This sentence will send a message to those considering doing these insidious deeds that this defendant did over a period of time,” Rogers said.

He sentenced Mansi to 11½ to 23 months in county jail, followed by three years of probation. He ordered Mansi to pay back $900,000 of what she stole, the bulk of which came from bank accounts she managed for the Bridgeport business over the course of a decade.

Mansi, 54, pleaded guilty in July to theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, and forgery, sparing her from a trial.

Among her purchases were $3,000 spent in the New Jersey prison system on behalf of one of her sons, who is incarcerated in Camden County on an assault case, prosecutors said. She also paid more than $103,000 to the mother of one of his children.

Mansi used hundreds of thousands of dollars in company money on her family, including $11,000 worth of tickets to concerts and Phillies games, the affidavit said. She even used it to pay for her younger son’s 21st birthday party trip to Miami, covering his airfare, hotel, and tickets to a rap concert.

She also, at one point, inflated her own salary at Arnold’s by $19,000, and forged W-2 forms to give her older son, a warehouse worker at the time, a higher salary, according to prosecutors.

Mansi’s theft was discovered in 2023, when an executive assistant to Arnold’s owner reviewed a bank statement from a business account the company had created at Mansi’s suggestion years earlier, according to testimony Thursday.

Jordan Berkowitz, who co-owns Arnold’s with his father, said Thursday that Mansi was one of his most trusted employees and was at the center of crucial functions at the company, including its finances and human resources. He and his family were close to Mansi and her family, and even bought her younger son a car for his 16th birthday.

When the theft was discovered, Berkowitz said, he learned the reason behind the company’s recent financial troubles, which had caused layoffs and other issues he said he is still dealing with. In hindsight, he said, he understood why Mansi had always undermined CFOs he had hired and had resisted returning to the office after COVID shutdowns.

“This is a pathological person who has no problem cutting the throat of people who help her, and will continue to do so if left to her own devices,” he said. “Every day she remains free, she is a risk for anyone she crosses paths with.”

Mansi apologized to Berkowitz and his family, and said she had accepted responsibility for her actions. She asked the judge to spare her from jail so she could care for her elderly mother, who she said is disabled and requires constant medical assistance.

But Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Kull cast doubt on Mansi’s professed remorse. Her statement Thursday, the prosecutor said, was the first time she had apologized to Berkowitz, and she had yet to begin repaying the company.

“Having two prior convictions for theft and having only received probation previously was not enough to deter this defendant from taking advantage and exploiting her employers,” Kull said. “As a result, they sustained a huge, a significant loss.”