Office Manager

A Chester County judge yesterday found Carol Reinbold guilty of having taken nearly $600,000 in company funds and of having used it for shopping sprees, vacations and renting a Ford Thunderbird. But the former office manager continued to maintain that her actions were justified. Judge Paula Francisco Ott ruled that Reinbold was guilty of 13 of 14 counts of credit-card fraud and theft from July 1986 to August 1992 while she worked at Creusot-Marrel Inc. in Wayne. According to testimony, Reinbold made 7,000 purchases.

Former office manager Carol Reinbold was handcuffed and ushered off to jail yesterday to begin serving a minimum of 3 years, 2 months for embezzling nearly $600,000 from the Wayne company where she once worked. Her fiance, Werner Beck, gently patted her cheek and watched as sheriff's deputies led her out of the Chester County courtroom. Reinbold, 39, wearing a cotton-candy linen suit, sobbed as she stood before Judge Paula Francisco Ott and made a final plea for leniency and offered to pay restitution.

For more than six years, Gayle J. Musselman pocketed an average of $3,000 a week from her employer through fraudulent invoice submissions and unauthorized checks. Yesterday, Chester County Court Judge Thomas G. Gavin sentenced Musselman, the former office manager for Sonoco Paper Products in Downingtown, to 1 1/2 to 3 years in state prison followed by 20 years' probation. Gavin also ordered Musselman to repay the $982,000 she stole. Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Fields had requested a term of 3 1/2 to 7 years, arguing that Musselman, 45, of Honey Brook, had shown no remorse and that a message needed to be sent to the community.

An ACORN Housing Corp. employee has launched a suit against a pair of independent filmmakers who secretly recorded a meeting with her while they posed as a pimp and prostitute. Katherine Conway-Russell, office manager at ACORN's Philadelphia branch, claimed that James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles attempted to entrap her into giving "inappropriate counseling" while violating Pennsylvania wiretapping laws. The civil suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia because it involves parties from different states, seeks at least $75,000 in damages for causing "emotional distress, harm and injury to plaintiff.

No lightbulb went off over Marion Leary. She had just watched the parents of one friend after another fall sick, then worry which bill they could afford to pay. The health-care debate wasn't leaving her optimistic. There had to be something she could do to tap the generosity of the crowd to help the under- or uninsured. As a nurse, Penn researcher, and former event planner, Leary knew a bit about medicine and money. She wanted to establish an organization akin to Kiva.org, which allows visitors to make small loans to vetted causes.

Carol Reinbold, sentenced to a minimum of 38 months in prison after using her employer's money to finance a half-million-dollar shopping spree, has spent the first year of her term working for the warden of the Chester County jail. Reinbold was scheduled to spend her days in the state women's facility in Muncy. She has not left Chester County since her incarceration last April 12. Reinbold, 40, previously lived in Berwyn until she moved to Virginia with her fiance. Now, she works in the prison's front office, serving meals and cleaning.

Betty "Goose" Compton, 71, who co-owned Compton's Log Cabin, a once-popular Haddon Township eatery, died of respiratory failure Monday at Atlantic City Medical Center-City Division. Mrs. Compton ran the restaurant's office for more than 25 years until it closed in 1995. The landmark white building on Cuthbert Road was torn down, and the site is now a drugstore. Mrs. Compton liked the job because it allowed her to see her children off to school and then be home with them in the afternoons, said Edwin Compton, her husband of 46 years.

Eric Nordberg divides his life into two parts - before the fire and after. Before, he had a nice house in the suburbs, an established business in Center City, a wife who made him laugh, and three happy daughters. Fire consumed his Bucks County house on May 25, killing baby Katie, 17 months, and critically injuring his wife, Susan Thomas. Initially, doctors told Nordberg that because of smoke and carbon monoxide inhalation and the length of time her brain went without oxygen, the prognosis for middle daughter Julia, 4, was grim.

Esther DiLiberto, who will be 100 May 10, gets kisses from Judy Packer (left), office manager at the Medford Convalescent Center, and Mary Griscom, a social worker. Residents joined family and friends yesterday to share an afternoon of treats and entertainment.