WASHINGTON -- The former director of the historic Congressional Cemetery has been charged with embezzling more than $175,000 from dozens of cemetery clients -- including an FBI charity.
Federal prosecutors charged in an indictment that 64-year-old John Hanley used the money to buy racehorses, among other things.Law enforcers said the theft included a $4,545.80 check in August 1996 intended to help maintain the gravesite of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Hanley pleaded innocent Friday at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Prosecutors charged Hanley, the only salaried employee of the cemetery from 1988 to 1997, with stealing money paid by bereaved families for funerals and gravestones. He also allegedly stole donations paid by the Sons of the American Revolution and even the fees charged to dog walkers.
The cemetery is the final resting place of some 60,000 people, including Hoover, march composer John Philip Sousa, Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and 80 members of Congress.