HAMMOND | A DeMotte couple previously sentenced to more than 10 years behind bars for a public embezzlement scheme involving erasable ink were able to erase a large chunk of their prison time on appeal.

Michael Orsburn was trustee of Keener Township, and his wife, Teresa, was township secretary while the two were stealing public funds intended to help the poor and provide emergency relief.

"The Orsburns were poor custodians of the public's funds," 7th Circuit Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote. "Between 2000 and 2004, they embezzled about $310,000, roughly 15 percent of the money that passed through their hands."

Though it was illegal, their conduct was not so severe that the couple -- who have children -- both deserved to spend more than a decade behind bars, Easterbrook wrote in a May 8 opinion overturning their sentences.

Teresa Orsburn admitted in court that as township secretary, she wrote township checks to her husband in erasable ink and had them deposited into the family bank account. When the cancelled checks were returned to the trustee's office, she would erase her husband's name and write in the name of a regular township vendor to escape detection.

The scheme finally came to light after other township officials, fed up with being denied access to the township's records, went into the office after hours and looked at the books themselves, witnesses testified at trial.

The "unusually high" sentence came about because government prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano relied on the wrong sentencing law, Easterbrook concluded.

Instead of using a law designed for mere embezzlement, prosecutors invoked the federal bribery statute, which is a more serious crime than simple embezzlement when it involves "fraud involving the deprivation of the intangible right to honest services of public officials."

A similar set of facts under the embezzlement law could produce sentences of six years or less, Easterbrook calculated.

The Orsburns spent all of the ill-gotten money, much of it on fancy motorcycling equipment, court records state.