Ex-Rescue Squad Director Gets Jail For Theft

BENSALEM, PA — The former chief of the Bucks County Rescue Squad will spend time in prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $157,000 from the squad and Bristol Township over nearly a decade.

Scott Mel Bahner, 50, of Bensalem, was ordered Wednesday to report July 6 to Bucks County Correctional Facility, where he will serve a sentence of six to 23 months. He also will serve a three-year concurrent term of probation.

Bahner pleaded guilty in December to counts of theft and access device fraud, admitting that he stole $127,942 from the rescue squad while employed as its chief from 2009-2018. He started stealing almost immediately, prosecutors say, starting just seven months after he was hired.

"This defendant routinely and repeatedly betrayed the trust placed in him by the Bucks County Rescue Squad and the citizens and taxpayers who fund and rely on the organization," said Deputy District Attorney Marc J. Furber. "Fortunately, the victims in this case will be made financially whole. However, his prison sentence should serve as a warning that thefts of this kind from the nonprofits that serve our communities will not be tolerated in Bucks County."

President Judge Wallace H. Bateman, Jr. said that, in sentencing Bahner, he sought to weigh the good he'd done as a paramedic and trainer in emergency medicine against the harm he had done.

"For all those people that you helped, there’s just as many people that you’ve hurt," Bateman said.

Separate from his thefts from the rescue squad, Bahner also stole about $29,000 from Bristol Township while working part-time as a community service officer for the Bristol Township Police Department. He falsified time records between March 2016 and September 2017, resulting in getting paid for 1,777 hours that he didn't work.

Bahner stole money from the rescue squad by writing himself checks and unauthorized use of company credit cards for personal expenses. He made multiple purchases at gun stores, gas stations and restaurants, made payments to the National Rifle Association and paid for a relative's treatment at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Florida.

"I failed," Bahner said in court. "I failed every member of public safety in Bucks County who I ever had the privilege to work with."

Members of the rescue squad, which served Bristol Borough and Bristol Township, addressed the court Wednesday, describing years of stress knowing that financial hardships might shut down the squad.

An investment fund belonging to Bahner has been seized and is expected to be liquidated to cover restitution for the full amount of his thefts from the Bucks County Rescue Squad.