By Patrick Lakamp
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
(TNS)
Whatever the judge’s punishment was going to be, Dejan Karlovic already bore a heavy burden for his crime.
Karlovic’s 56-year-old father died by suicide a few days after the FBI arrested Karlovic in July 2024 on a charge of stealing $584,884 from Jericho Road Community Health Center.
“He blames himself for his father’s suicide,” defense lawyer Dominic Saraceno said in court Thursday, about the family’s shame over Karlovic’s arrest. “He’ll carry that punishment the rest of his life.”
Karlovic, 30, of Amherst, admitted he stole the money while working as a senior grants accountant for the nonprofit organization.
Karlovic “treated Jericho Road as his personal piggy bank,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kruly said.
Karlovic had access to three Jericho Road commercial credit cards, and he processed hundreds of transactions using fake invoices that he created that sent Jericho Road’s money to a fake account, with the money ending up in his personal bank account. The fraudulent transactions happened between March 1 and June 26 in 2024. When Jericho Road personnel became suspicious of the transactions, they conducted an internal investigation and then alerted law enforcement.
On Thursday, Karlovic learned his sentence in U.S. District Court: three months in prison and two years of post-release supervision.
His charge carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, and the sentencing guidelines in his plea agreement called for a prison term of 18 to 24 months.
Saraceno asked U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. to sentence Karlovic to probation, saying Karlovic has many people relying on him and he can only take care of them if he is not in prison.
Sinatra said the number of transactions and the total amount stolen justified a prison sentence, as did the greed Karlovic demonstrated by stealing money from an organization that serves refugees and vulnerable patients.
“You thought you needed the money more than anybody else and took it,” Sinatra said.
But the judge also termed Karlovic’s physical and mental health as “dangling by a thread,” saying he needed to be careful not to impose a sentence that would “destroy him.”
Dr. Myron Glick, the founder and CEO of Jericho Road, first met Karlovic when he and his family arrived in Buffalo as refugees from Serbia. Karlovic was just a child.
“Jericho Road and I helped you and your family in those early years,” Glick said in court.
“I was excited when we hired you. I expected you to be great,” Glick told Karlovic during his victim-impact statement. “Instead, only months later, I was shocked, angered and so disappointed to find out that you had betrayed the trust that I and our entire organization placed in you.”
Karlovic’s theft hurt Jericho Road profoundly, Glick said.
“The money that you stole was to be used for a program that we were operating to help newcomers just like you when you were a child,” Glick said. “This program was to help some of the most vulnerable people in Buffalo. You hurt these vulnerable people.”
Glick also forgave Karlovic.
And at the end of the court proceeding, Glick embraced Karlovic’s weeping mother as he left the courtroom.
Glick said at times he feels Karlovic should suffer more than he already has for the harm he committed against Jericho Road and the refugees it strives to help.
“Then at the same time I don’t want to see his life destroyed,” Glick said. “I do believe that grace is God-given and second chances are real.”
Karlovic lives with his 49-year-old mother, who is disabled and unable to work because of a back injury, and she also suffers from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, Saraceno said.
Karlovic’s 93-year-old grandmother also resides with him. She suffers from dementia, and Karlovic is responsible for her care as well, Saraceno said in a court filing.
“He has a lot of people relying on him for support,” Saraceno said.
In a prosecution filing, Kruly called it “a tragedy that the defendant has put his family in a situation, and it is heartbreaking that the defendant’s father took his own life after the defendant’s arrest.”
But Karlovic deserved a prison sentence, Kruly said.
While Karlovic says he stole the money because he and his family were experiencing significant financial hardship, his motives do not look pure given his attitude at work and purchases, Kruly said.
“He was a disgruntled employee who did not feel valued at his job,” Kruly said in a sentencing recommendation. “In his mind, that justified stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Karlovic spent his ill-gotten gains to buy a $74,000 BMW and put $30,000 toward a new pickup truck. He had $100,000 in cash in his home when the FBI arrested him, Kruly said.
“In other words, once the defendant paid off his family’s mortgage and sent money to family in Serbia, he still had hundreds of thousands of dollars of stolen money to stash away and spend on luxury items. That is not a misguided attempt at helping one’s family. It is greed.”
Karlovic has been prescribed medications to manage his mental health symptoms and since his arrest has attended weekly group therapy sessions and also individual sessions, his lawyer said. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and panic disorder.
Karlovic was born in Bosnia and moved to the United States at age 6 with his parents.
Jericho Road has recovered more than half of the stolen money, Saraceno said.
The judge scheduled a restitution hearing later this month, giving the government time to finalize exactly how much remains to be paid back.
“I know what I did was wrong,” Karlovic said during his sentencing hearing. “I am deeply sorry for the harm I caused to the community, my family and myself.”
He apologized to the Jericho Road community.
“This has broken me,” he said of his father’s suicide.
He said he could not undo his past but promised to do something positive with his life going forward, to “turn my pain into something meaningful” and to “honor my father’s memory and restore my family’s faith in me.”
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© 2025 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.). Visit www.buffalonews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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Tags: accountant, Accounting, embezzlement, prison, prison sentences
