WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP, Pa. — With downcast eyes and a microphone clenched in one fist, Brian Farley stood uneasily before nearly 400 children from the Tri-Boro Youth Soccer Club in eastern Pennsylvania.
He had stolen their money.
Farley, 55, the longtime treasurer of the all-volunteer, nonprofit club, had pocketed $120,000 from the organization’s bank accounts — money paid by parents so that their children could play.
A county court judge had ordered Farley to repent publicly to club members as part of his guilty plea, and so there he stood, in front of a throng of children sitting cross-legged on a grassy ball field waiting to play.