Winchester man sentenced for embezzlement from regional community services board

By: Sarah Vogelsong - October 24, 2023 12:02 am

(Getty Images)

The former information technology manager for the Harrisonburg-area community services board will serve 15 years in prison for embezzling almost $1 million in public funds between 2019 and 2021, when he was arrested.

Winchester resident Andrew Hahn agreed to plead guilty to five counts of embezzlement and one count of money laundering. Investigators found that he embezzled more than $890,000 by creating false invoices for computer purchases from a company he owned.

According to Harrisonburg police, the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Services Board notified law enforcement of its suspicions of embezzlement in October 2021 after an internal investigation and external financial audit.

Community services boards are Virginia’s primary providers of behavioral health and developmental disability services at the local level. They are funded through the state budget and have been a focus of Virginia lawmakers in recent years as the state struggles to shore up its beleaguered behavioral health system.

Police said Hahn, who as IT manager had the power to award technology-related contracts, awarded those contracts to his company for products and services that were either never provided to the board or were provided at inflated prices.

“Hahn used his position to his advantage and went to great lengths to conceal his actions from the HRCSB,” Harrisonburg police said at the time of the arrest. “The investigation revealed that the employer followed common and standard business practices, including internal and external audits, but Hahn found a way to circumvent these safeguards.”

The office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, which was involved in investigating the case through its financial crimes team, said over $720,000 of the money Hahn embezzled was used for his personal expenses.

Rockingham County Circuit Court sentenced Hahn to 20 years of prison on each embezzlement count, with 17 years of each sentence suspended. He was also sentenced to 40 years in prison on the money laundering charge, with all of the time suspended.

In addition to imprisonment, the court ordered Hahn to pay almost $190,000 in restitution.

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Sarah Vogelsong

Sarah is Editor-in-Chief of the Mercury and previously its environment and energy reporter. She has worked for multiple Virginia and regional publications, including Chesapeake Bay Journal, The Progress-Index and The Caroline Progress. Her reporting has won awards from groups such as the Society of Environmental Journalists and Virginia Press Association, and she is an alumna of the Columbia Energy Journalism Initiative and Metcalf Institute Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists.