District Judge Sharon Gleason handed down a sentence of 41 months in prison and ordered Maggie Ahmaogak to pay $393,193.90 in restitution for theft, money laundering and misuse of Whaling Commission funds.

Ahmaogak’s sentencing hearing becan earier this month but was postposed because of scheduling conflicts until Wednesday. The ex-commissioner pled guilty to two counts of Misapplication of Funds as well as a count of money laundering on May 7th of this year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward told the court that Ahmaogak used the commission as “her own private cash cow” and stole more than $420,000. Ahmaogak’s Attorney, Kevin Fritzgerald, argued that the sum was closer to $91,000 and that Ahmaogak had given thousands of those dollars to Whaling Commissioners and that other sums of money went to meet commission needs such as two snow machines that were purchased to replace two that were destroyed during a caribou hunt.

But, Stewart told the court that whenever Ahmaogak wanted to make a costly purchase that the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission paid the tab and that the commission paid for Ahmaogak’s meals and expensive personal items. She went on to say that Ahmaogak approved her own bonuses as well as retroactive pay raises and wrote checks to herself.

Fritzgerald said in court that many of the expeditures that Ahmaogak initially said were legitimate but later said were inappropriate were just mistakes in a complex case.

Steward called what Ahmaogak did, “straight up theft.” and that the explanations that Agmaogak gave for the use of these funds, “didn’t add up” and were not mistakes but lies.

Calling the years of misappropriation and incident, Ahmaogak apologized to the court but went on to say that she had “done a lot of work for (her) people, putting food on their tables.”

Judge Gleason however said that she felt that Ahmaogak had not accepted responsibility for her actions, and that she was troubled by the violation of trust saying that it was the most troubling. Despite Fritzgerald’s request that Ahmaogak be sentenced to house arrest for the 41 months, Gleason sentenced Ahmaogak to prison to spend her time. She was also given three years probation after her incarceration.