The Toledo woman who pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $230,000 from a Perrysburg facility was
sentenced to four years in prison on Monday.
Marilyn Mikolajczyk, 40, was immediately taken into custody after Wood County Common Pleas Court Judge
Reeve Kelsey ordered the prison sentence for two counts of theft and two counts of forgery.
She was also ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to Kingston Residence of Perrysburg, her former
employer. The figure represents the amount not covered by Kingston’s insurance company,
Mikolajczyk had control over some of the finances and books as an employee. During the course of
employment over several years, she forged the signature of her supervisor and friend, Karen Burnard, the
executive director of the facility. She also altered the books to cover her scheme.
Burnard was in court on Monday and provided a victim impact statement.
She shared details of how she and the defendant had a friendship outside their work relationship.
"She had the utmost trust of Kingston. I trusted her. The residents trusted her. The employees
trusted her," Burnard told the court. "She looked me in the eye while forging my name. She
thought nothing of her employer or me."
Burnard said the defendant was paid well with regular raises and was not in a financial hardship
situation sharing many things purchased by Mikolajczyk and vacation trips taken by her and her family.

Burnard told the court the defendant was "manipulating her position" and had forged her
signature 72 times with "no regard to me as her boss and friend."
In closing her statement she told the judge, "I ask you give Marilyn no sympathy. … While not the
maximum, I recommend four years in prison."
The defendant pleaded guilty to the charges on Oct. 17.
As indicted, the theft offenses began in 2004 and continued through February of this year.
Lorin Zaner, who represented Mikolajczyk in court on Monday, told the judge his client expects the
insurance company would be seeking additional restitution from her. He asked for community control
sanctions in lieu of a prison sentence, as she had no prior convictions. The attorney reminded the judge
of the numerous letters of support written to the court on her behalf. By allowing her to remain out of
prison, she could thus work toward paying the restitution.
Prior to sentencing, Mikolajczyk was offered the chance to speak.
"I had a good job and good education," the defendant said. "But I made a terrible mistake
that will follow me for the rest of my life."
Mikolajczyk then turned toward the gallery and first addressed several Kingston employees in attendance.

"I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to all of you," she said addressing them as friends as she
fought back tears.
She then apologized to her family who were also gathered, expressing her sorrow for "what it cost
you."
In issuing the sentence, the judge read much of the required legal language noting the victim suffered
serious economic harm and stated "imprisonment is necessary to deter others and punish her."

Kelsey ordered two years on each of the theft counts and two years on each of the forgery counts. Each
theft count was paired with a forgery count and those sentences ordered to be consecutive. The two pairs
then were ordered to be served concurrently to account for the four-year aggregate sentence.
He stated that no single prison sentence adequately reflects the serious nature of her crimes.
Following the proceedings, Kingston Residence released a media statement.
It read, in part, "We hope that this one incident will not take away from the tremendous service we
provide to our residents each and every day.
"We at Kingston are deeply saddened that one of our trusted employees has damaged her life, the
lives of her family members, and the lives of her Kingston family members (her co-workers) by committing
such a serious crime. We are grateful that justice is being served."