Freeport EMS's treasurer stepped down in 2020 after misusing nearly $100,000 in funds from January of 2017 to May of 2020.

On Dec. 1, the department's executive director F. Christopher O'Leath wrote a letter which said Justin DeAngelis had been the department's treasurer from 2016 until May 2020, during which time 62 unauthorized transactions totaling about $97,800 were conducted.

O'Leath says in the letter he discovered the transactions in May of 2020 when he became executive director of the service and was allowed access to the accounts.

O'Leath said the EMS department is a private nonprofit agency not funded by Freeport borough. He also said DeAngelis agreed to make restitution for the missing funds, and “did so in full by September 2020.”

The Freeport EMS board agreed not to press charges, he said.

O'Leath said in the letter that the department staff wanted to put the incident behind them after receiving the restitution. However, he wrote the letter in response to claims made in an anonymous letter he said was sent to media outlets around Nov. 15.

“Our silence on the issue was not meant to protect anyone but this organization,” O'Leath wrote in the letter.