- Former Gregg Township secretary pleads guilty to stealing $533K with funds going to DraftKings, Venmo, and personal trips over 5 years.
- An audit revealed nearly 3,700 fraudulent transactions dating to 2019, as sentencing is set for Sept. 16.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Former Gregg Township Secretary and Treasurer Pamela Hackenburg pleaded guilty to stealing more than half a million dollars in taxpayer funds on Monday. In a years-long scheme, Hackenburg funneled public money into legal sports betting, personal trips, and luxury purchases.
Hackenburg, 56, of Union County, entered an open guilty plea to three felony charges — theft, identity theft, and access device fraud — in Centre County Court, confirming a case that has roiled the rural Centre County community and exposed deep flaws in local oversight.
The total stolen: $532,747.67 – a figure that includes $322,000 spent on DraftKings, more than $149,000 funneled through Venmo, and nearly $49,000 in miscellaneous personal spending on resorts, restaurants, and retail.
Centre County Deputy District Attorney Crystal Hundt confirmed she will seek full restitution at sentencing, now set for Sept. 16 before Judge Katherine V. Oliver.
The Details Of Hackenburg’s Charges
Hackenburg began stealing just months into her tenure and operated largely unchecked for five years. As the township’s sole keeper of bank passwords and bookkeeper of record, she used Gregg Township credit cards for sports betting over thousands of transactions and then paid the balances using taxpayer dollars, including money from a restricted road project loan.
The scheme unraveled only after a township employee inadvertently received a credit card statement in the mail in early 2024, packed with sports betting deposits and charges labeled “DraftKings”.
Township supervisors placed Hackenburg on unpaid suspension in May 2024 and fired her after State Police filed charges that November. An independent audit later revealed nearly 3,700 fraudulent Pennsylvania sports betting transactions dating back to March 2019.
Hackenburg’s plea offers long-awaited accountability to residents like Tory Ballenger-Snyder, who runs a salon in the Old Gregg School building where the township office is located. Ballenger-Snyder’s rent payments were among the funds stolen.
The plea closes a major chapter in a small-town saga that has become a cautionary tale across Pennsylvania. Gregg Township has since overhauled its financial controls, slashed credit card limits, mandated annual background checks, and turned over all bookkeeping to an outside firm.
Still unresolved is how much of the losses will be reimbursed. The township filed a claim under its $700,000 bond policy and expects a decision within weeks. For now, residents await sentencing and a reckoning with how their trust and tax dollars vanished in plain sight.
