Former Cusick councilman sentenced

A little over four years for bank fraud for stealing more than $200,000 from town

SPOKANE – Luke Michael Servas, 38, was sentenced to 51 months – 4.25 years – in federal prison for bank fraud in connection with embezzling more than a quarter million dollars from the Town of Cusick.

In exchange for the guilty plea, 75 other charges were dismissed, according to court documents. Servas was taken into custody at sentencing Dec. 19. He was taken to the Federal Corrections Institution in Sheridan, Oregon, a medium security prison.

Prosecutors had recommended a 63-month sentence. Because of Servas’s misdemeanor criminal history the sentencing range was 51-63 months, according to court documents. His attorney asked for a downward departure from the sentencing range, which was denied by the judge.

In addition to the prison sentence, Servas was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to pay $282,208 in restitution. Interest was waived. He was also assessed a $100 penalty.

“Mr. Servas used his elected position of trust to financially devastate a small community,” U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref said in a press release. “Our communities trust public officials to serve others, rather than to use their positions to line their own pockets.”

Waldref also commended the hard work done by the Town of Cusick to begin to pick up the pieces and starting the work of rebuilding the town’s finances and regaining the public’s trust.

Cusick Mayor Tina Alford spoke at sentencing and provided a victim’s impact statement.

According to court documents and information presented at the sentencing hearing, between October 2022 and March 2023, Servas embezzled more than $277,000, while employed as the Town Clerk and as a member of the Town Council for Cusick, the news release said. The money was transferred to accounts owned and controlled by Servas and his spouse, Afton Servas. Afton Servas was not a defendant or suspect and still serves on the Cusick Town Council.

In March 2023, other town officials expressed concern that the town’s operating account was almost completely devoid of funds. According to information disclosed during court proceedings, Servas falsely suggested to law enforcement representatives that the elected mayor of Cusick, the late Duane Schofield, was to blame and attempted to delete the town’s computer systems to hide the fraud and to misappropriate additional funds from the town.

Both Luke Servas and his wife spoke at sentencing. Luke Servas also submitted a detailed letter to U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, who sentenced him.

“My actions were inexcusable,” Servas wrote in part. “I feel tremendous shame knowing that I betrayed the trust of the people I set out to serve. I will spend the rest of my life profoundly ashamed and regretful that my actions served to undermine my community’s confidence in their government.”

He wrote that he had Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder. He also discussed an opioid addiction. In 2012 he “hit rock bottom,” he wrote. He’s been on Suboxone the last nine and a half years to overcome the addiction, he wrote and has run a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

Servas wrote that he “… mistakenly used the mayor’s credit card – linked to my PayPal account – for a cryptocurrency deposit, believing the funds were coming from my own account. When I realized the error, I panicked. Instead of notifying the mayor immediately and accepting the consequences, I made a series of irrational decisions. I attempted to fix the mistake by trading cryptocurrencies, hoping to recover the funds quickly. Instead, I spiraled into increasingly reckless trades, making the situation far worse.”

Prosecutors took a different view.

“Defendant egregiously abused a position of significant public trust to commit his crimes, and did so in a way that showed not only premeditation, but a concerted choice and effort to enrich himself at the expense of the public that he swore and promised to serve,” Waldref wrote in her sentencing memorandum. “There is nothing in the (Pre Sentence Report) or otherwise in the record to suggest that Defendant’s actions were driven by anything other than pure greed.”

Servas has prior convictions for driving with a suspended license, theft, drugs, and violation of a no contact protection order, Waldref wrote. She said that while Servas has never served a sentence longer than 37 days, the fact that he has “multiple prior financial crime convictions suggest that a significant sentence of incarceration is warranted and needed here.”