Red Hook

Woman gets jail time for stealing over $1M in amusement park tickets

February 14, 2018 By Paul Frangipane Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Rosemarie Bader appears in Brooklyn Supreme Court to be sentenced for grand larceny. Eagle photo by Paul Frangipane
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A longtime employee of a Red Hook charter bus company was sentenced to one to three years in prison on Wednesday for stealing more than $1 million in amusement park tickets from the company.

After Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun ordered Rosemarie Bader be held without bail following her Jan. 24 plea, she appeared in court in handcuffs, and winked to her supporters in the court audience at sentencing.

As the former sales director for Best Trails and Travel Corporation at 5 Sigourney St., Bader, 51, used the company credit card to buy more than 36,000 tickets to nearby amusement parks, according to court documents.

Between January 2014 and November 2016, she bought 23,136 tickets to Dorney Park in Pennsylvania and 13,102 tickets to Six Flags in New Jersey.

A portion of the tickets were redeemed at the parks through trips unconnected from the company and the remainder were kept “for her own use,” a Brooklyn district attorney statement stated.

As part of her sentence, the judge ordered Bader pay $1,000,533 restitution for the worth of the tickets.

While she did not speak in court, Bader sent a letter to Chun detailing the reasons she felt she committed the crime. Without giving detail, the judge cited some “very personal issues,” including medical conditions.

She also requested in the letter to postpone sentencing to be sent to a residential treatment center, but by law based on her guilty plea to first-degree grand larceny, the judge was forced to sentence her to jail time.

Chun handed her the promised minimum sentence, despite prosecutors’ recommendations for two to six years in prison.

As part of her scheme, Bader intercepted UPS and FedEx ticket deliveries and stored the stubs in a personal safe under her desk.

She was caught by an employer in 2016 when they found company orders exceeded available bus seats and she was promptly fired.

Bader was arrested on Aug. 30, 2017 and pleaded guilty at her fourth court appearance.

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